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The Coventry Society: Proud of our city – striving to make it better! Campaign for a quality Coventry

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Next Meeting

Saving the Past for the Future

In 2024 Coventry-based historian Adam Wood was contacted by a retired criminal law solicitor, whose company had been the descendant of the firm who defended the IRA bombers of Broadgate in August 1939. He had a large box containing all the papers relating to the defence, and was looking to pass it on.

Coventry Archives had been contacted but hadn’t replied, so the solicitor asked whether Adam would like the papers. Needless to say, this was very much the case.

What was the reason for the Archives’ apparent lack of interest? And how do they, or any archive facility, decide what should be preserved for future generations?

In this talk Adam Wood will examine the age-old maxim of ‘One man’s meat is another’s poison’, and ask whether objects from the past are indeed history worth saving, or simply nostalgia, valuable only to an individual’s collection.