Our Lives, Our Stories with Carl Chinn

Epizodes

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  Paul Smith 11.09.2026 57min

  Carl Chinn sits down in conversation with Paul Smith, a retired Birmingham firefighter and one of the people who helped turn the city's St Patrick's Parade into one of the largest in the world. Born to a Dublin mom and dad and raised in a council flat in Longbridge.On 9/11, Paul and his watch stood in a fire station in Northfield and watched 343 New York firefighters lost in a single day. Feeling helpless three and a half thousand miles away, they started with car washes and bucket collections, and the people of the West Midlands turned that into a quarter of a million pounds for the widows and children of the fallen. Then Paul set out to bring the New York Fire Department to Birmingham, so they could see that love for themselves and march in the parade. He also tells Carl about the family history he has only recently uncovered, a grandmother from Kerry whose story was never spoken of at home.This is a conversation about brotherhood, grief and hope, about the deep roots of the Irish community in Birmingham, and about how one act of kindness can build a bridge across an ocean that lasts a lifetime.Content warning: This episode contains discussion of the September 11th attacks and the loss of life, bereavement, references to Ireland's mother and baby institutions, the 1974 Birmingham pub bombings and some strong language.Please do take care whilst listening or skip this episode if this could be distressing for you. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  Paul Masefield 04.09.2026 55min

  Carl Chinn sits down in conversation with Paul Masefield, a former professional English footballer and TV pundit, who grew up a few doors from Carl in Birmingham and has spent more than twenty years building a life in Asia. Paul's football started with his dad Stuart, a fine semi professional centre forward whose career was cut short by injury, and with his grandad Frank, who drove him to games, brought a flask of hot coffee for the cold mornings and cleaned everybody's boots afterwards with his penknife. Paul played for the school, for the Cubs, for Dunlop Rovers, refused to sign schoolboy forms with anybody so that he could keep his options open, and eventually signed a two year apprenticeship at Birmingham City. What follows is a story about reinvention. There are spells at Exeter, Stockport, Doncaster and Preston, a coaching badge earned at twenty-one, and then a phone call out of the blue that Paul was convinced was a wind up, which took him to Hong Kong and eventually to Singapore. Underneath all of it is a Brummie who still goes into the city centre every time he is home, because as he puts it, the love here is like nowhere else on earth. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  Jayne Murray 28.08.2026 53min

  Carl Chinn sits down in conversation with Jayne Murray, artist and director of Place Prospectors, who went to Druids Heath in 2017 to run a small arts project and ended up holding the missing history of an entire Birmingham estate. A resident had kept carrier bags full of pamphlets, newsletters and posters from decades of community activity. It took Jayne months just to put it in chronological order. What emerged was a credit union set up to beat the loan sharks, a green space saved by residents, a neighbourhood action group that fought a housing transfer, and a resident's essay from the late 1970s.Jayne grew up in Lincoln and Sleaford, the daughter of a Glaswegian father and a Lincoln mother, and she was making little exhibitions out of museum postcards before she was eight. She talks about the GCSE batik practical that told her what she wanted to do with her life, the theory teacher at Derby who taught her how to look at an image, the 1995 weekend she spent teaching people the internet in a launderette with borrowed computers and a washing powder sponsor, and her conviction that art is not something you have to be good enough for.Jayne is passionate about making art accessible and social justice.Jayne Murray (artist) - https://www.instagram.com/jaynemurrayartistPlace Prospectors - https://prospectors.org.uk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  Aftab Rahman MBE 21.08.2026 1h

  Carl Chinn sits down in conversation with Aftab Rahman, founder and chief executive of the Birmingham charity LegacyWM and a lifelong social activist. Aftab came to England from Sylhet aged six in 1976, one of the first few Bangladeshi families to settle here, and grew up in Lozells through the 1980s.This is a Birmingham life story that carries a wider history. Aftab talks about the myth of return and why Bangladeshi families arrived later than others, the racism and street violence of the 1980s. He remembers a father who split his years between two countries, a stepmother who raised him as her own, the time away from his mother and when he was reunited with her. He speaks of leaving school with no qualifications, the restaurant trade that was expected, the teacher who finally made him believe he was clever, and the life goal he set at 19, simply 'to help'.From the Bangladeshi Youth Forum to founding LegacyWM at his living-room table, this is a story about heritage, identity and what ordinary people can build when they follow their heart and their purpose.LegacyWM - https://legacywm.orgTrigger warning: This episode contains discussion of racism and racist violence, and references to wartime atrocities including sexual violence. Please do take care whilst listening or skip this episode if this could be distressing for you. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  A Family History Guide & Finding Elizabeth Cronley 14.08.2026 30min

  In this special solo episode, Carl Chinn opens up his own family history and turns it into a practical guide to tracing where you come from. He starts with the memories, a story passed down through the women of his family, from his great-grandmother, Granny Wood, to his nan, Lil Perry, to his mom Sylvie Chinn. It is the story of an Irish woman from County Kildare who married an English soldier at the Curragh, came to Worcester, and was abandoned, ending her days alone and in poverty in the workhouse.Carl then follows the paper trail to see whether the family story stands up, working through censuses, baptismal and death records, the 1939 register and the British Newspaper Archive. Along the way he shows how ordinary families surface in the record, often only when there is trouble, and how spellings shift, names change and truths that were softened over the years can finally be confirmed. He weaves in his own advice throughout: talk to the oldest members of your family, ask open questions that draw out stories, and gather every certificate, cutting and photograph you can.At its heart this is a reflection on why the spoken word of working-class families matters as much as any document, and on the quiet act of bringing a forgotten woman back to life and giving her some dignity. If you have ever wished you had asked more before it was too late, this one is for you.Content warning: This episode contains descriptions of domestic abuse, poverty and dying in poverty. Please do take care whilst listening or skip this episode if this could be distressing for you.Find out more: ourlives-ourstories.comAbout This Podcast:The Our Lives, Our Stories podcast features conversations about life stories, family history, memory, identity, and the moments that shape who we are.Our Mission:Our Lives, Our Stories is a living archive for our generation and the ones to follow. Our mission is to empower everyone to tell their story.Record Your Own Story:Our website https://www.ourlives-ourstories.com has free guides on how to unlock memories and record them.My Life, My Story:My Life, My Story is a guided legacy journal curated by Carl Chinn that includes prompts to help you reflect on your memories, experiences, and family history. It's a keepsake to help preserve your story, or a special gift for a parent, grandparent, or loved one.Available now on Amazon.https://ourlives-ourstories.com/mylifemystoryYour life matters. Your story matters. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  Nicola Silk 07.08.2026 1h 7min

  Carl Chinn sits down with Nicola Silk, a Birmingham based producer and director whose life has been closely tied to television from the very beginning. She was one of the first children through the doors of the BBC Pebble Mill nursery, dancing with the Wombles on the lawn at four years old whilst her mum, a rare woman in 1960s television, worked in the studios nearby. From there, her story became, in many ways, the story of Birmingham telly itself.Nicola looks back on a childhood shaped by two faiths, a Catholic mom and a Jewish dad, and on teenage years spent playing keyboards in the bands. She talks about learning her craft at Pebble Mill, the generous mentors who shaped her, directing Travel Man with Richard Ayoade and later Joe Lycett, and how a curiosity about Birmingham grew into Joe Lycett's United States of Birmingham and a real, now annual International Day of Birmingham. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  Lyle Bignon 31.07.2026 47min

  Carl Chinn sits down in conversation with Lyle Bignon, Birmingham's Night Time Economy Ambassador and a lifelong champion of the city's music and culture.Growing up in Balsall Heath as a third-generation Irish, second-generation French Brummie, Lyle found music everywhere, in Dublin record shops, in his father's violin workshop, and in the Irish traditional sessions of Pat Molloy. He talks about identity, belonging, a recent ADHD diagnosis, and why he now spends his days fighting for the survival of Birmingham's nightlife and the people who make their living after dark. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  Siobhán Stevenson 24.07.2026 48min

  Carl Chinn sits down in conversation with Dr Siobhán Stevenson, a Birmingham oral historian and audio producer who has spent her career capturing other people's life stories, from community radio volunteers to imprisoned people to the women who fought for gender equality in 1980s Birmingham. In this episode, the microphone turns the other way, and Siobhán tells her own story.She grew up in an Irish family from Dublin who settled in Birmingham, spent her early childhood in Cabra, and came back to Birmingham in 1979. She talks about the balance of being the Irish in England and the English in Ireland. She reflects on the strong women in her family, a non-traditional route back into education, a trip to India that changed how she saw the world, and the PhD on community radio that led her to a life spent giving voice to the voiceless.Content warning: This episode contains references to bereavement and the death of a child. Please do take care whilst listening or skip this episode if this could be distressing for you.Website - https://siobhanlstevenson.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  Dr Karamat Iqbal 17.07.2026 56min

  Carl Chinn sits down in conversation with Dr Karamat Iqbal, an educator and historian whose life crosses two worlds. Karamat grew up in a village of ten houses in Kashmir, walking hours to school across the ravines, until at barely a teenager he was put on a plane and arrived in Nechells to live in the same house where his father had once lodged.Together they trace the history of Kashmiri and Mirpuri migration to Birmingham, from the Lascars and the pioneer generation to the first brick house in Karamat's village, built with money earned in a Birmingham factory. Karamat speaks of the racism he met on his first day at school, the eight years he did not speak to his parents, the languages he grew up between, and how, slowly, he fell in love with the city.It is a story about migration and belonging, about the community, and about the resilience of a boy who made a home in a place that did not always want him.Content warning: This episode contains descriptions of racism and racial violence. Please do take care whilst listening or skip this episode if this could be distressing for you. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  Rebecca McKinney 03.07.2026 48min

  Carl Chinn sits down with Rebecca McKinney, an outstanding headteacher and Catholic schools inspector whose story begins in a big, fiercely close Irish family with roots in the centre of Dublin and the countryside of Kildare. From her mom's childhood in the Bordesley Green back-to-backs to early starts on her dad's market stall, Rebecca grew up among strong women, hard graft and parents who believed their daughters could be anything.This is a conversation about belief and belonging. Rebecca reflects on the teacher who spotted her at ten and later opened the door to her career, on her late father's gentleness and the faith that keeps him close, and on a way of leading a school built on kindness rather than fear. She talks about greeting every child by name at the gate, treating parents as people and not problems, and the day her school refused to move one little boy on and built a new classroom so he could stay.It is a warm and quietly moving portrait of a proud Brummie-Irish woman who turned everything she was given, by her mom and dad, her aunties and the people who believed in her, into a life spent believing in others. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  Making A Historian with Carl Chinn 25.06.2026 39min

  In this solo episode of Our Lives, Our Stories, Carl Chinn answered a question he has been asked all his life: what makes a historian? For years his answer was the books, the historical novels he read as a a child, from Robin Hood, William Tell and King Arthur to the writing of Rosemary Sutcliff and Henry Treece, which carried him from the Dark Ages to the Vikings, the Crusades and the mountains of the Caucasus.But looking back, Carl knows the real answer lies with his family. He remembers the Sunday afternoons of his childhood, the storytellers on both sides, his grandad Perry, struck down by multiple sclerosis, and his grandad Chinn, one of the old Contemptibles of 1914. He recalls his nan Lil Perry, the eldest of twelve who never had a childhood, and the old Brummagem words, clammed and wench, that carried a whole way of life. Through them, he found the hardships of the strong women in his family, the stories that led to his first books on poverty, the hated workhouse from which the NHS would one day emerge.This is a reflection on memory, dialect, belonging and why these stories matter, ending with Carl's heartfelt plea. His generation, he says, is the last who can tell you why the workhouse was hated and why the NHS is so loved. So grab hold of your oldest relatives and record their memories. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  Father's Day Special 21.06.2026 59min

  This Father's Day special, Carl Chinn and some of our guests over the passed year share the stories of the fathers and grandfathers who made them. From a working class bookmaker who played football on the rec and ran the school team because no teacher would, to a Jamaican-Irish poet whose dad quoted Shakespeare and Kipling off the cuff, from a German Jewish refugee who arrived aged 13 on the Kindertransport to a boxing coach who spent nearly four decades giving everything to lads from deprived Birmingham neighbourhoods and never charged a single one, these are the men who stayed, who worked, and who shaped the people around them in ways still being felt.This is an episode about presence and absence, inheritance and identity.Trigger warning: This episode contains discussion of the Holocaust, the Kindertransport, family bereavement and Partition violence. Please do take care whilst listening or skip this episode if this could be distressing for you. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  Stacey Barnfield 11.06.2026 52min

  Carl Chinn sits down with Stacey Barnfield, journalist, former editor of the Birmingham Post, photographer, and creator of the Colour Palette Company and Draw My City. Stacey grew up in Chelmsley Wood and Yardley, proud of both, and that sense of place runs through everything he has built.They talk about Stacey's path from print room runner at the Birmingham Post and Mail to deputy editor of the Birmingham Mail and editor of the Birmingham Post, and the pressures of leading local newspapers through the digital shift. Stacey also shares the story behind his colour palettes, born in lockdown and now displayed in museum gift shops from Liverpool to Glasgow, and the photography that captures Birmingham's changing face one frame at a time.Learn more about Stacey's work: edwinelliscreativemedia.com / thecolourpalettecompany.com / drawmycity.co.uk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  Kate Knowles 02.06.2026 40min

  Carl Chinn sits down in conversation with Kate Knowles, editor of the Birmingham Dispatch, a reader-funded online paper covering the stories that matter most to the West Midlands.They talk about Kate's background, how she became a journalist and what it takes to run an independent local paperContent warning: This episode contains discussion of mental health struggles and some strong language. Please do take care whilst listening.Learn more about the Birmingham Dispatch: https://birminghamdispatch.co.uk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  Toby Gorniak MBE 26.05.2026 1h 16min

  Carl Chinn is joined by educator, speaker, community activist and inspirational founder of the Gorniak Method, Toby Gorniak MBE, who grew up in Poland one of the stigmatised Roma community before arriving in Britain as a teenager seeking safety and a new beginning.They talk about Toby’s childhood experiences of discrimination and violence, the strength of family and importance of Roma culture, arriving in England as a refugee, and discovering purpose through dance, education and community work.Toby also reflects on the transformative meeting with his wife, becoming a father himself, and how his experiences have shaped the work he now does helping young people and communities build confidence, resilience and belief in themselves.This is a conversation about identity, belonging, kindness and the power of choosing hope and positive action in the face of adversity and prejudice. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  Christina Longden 19.05.2026 1h 12min

  Carl Chinn is joined by author, community builder and his former student Christina Longden, who grew up in the mill town of Dukinfield, near Stalybridge, and was among the first in her family to go to university. Since then, she has spent her life uncovering the stories that others left behind.They talk about her growing up working class in the north of England; the class and accent prejudice she encountered at university; and the astonishing family discovery that her great-great-great-grandfather Robert Stanley, a Victorian grocer, magistrate and mayor of Stalybridge, converted to Islam at the age of 69 and was then quietly erased from the family memory for a hundred years.This is a conversation about identity, belonging, and what happens when ordinary people dare to think for themselves. Christina's books, her work through the Lorna Young Foundation and her community interest company Pastruisms all carry the same belief: that every life has a story worth telling, and that those stories can bring people together across every kind of difference.Links:"His Own Man" by Christina Longden — https://www.amazon.co.uk/His-Own-Man-Victorian-Reschid/dp/0992879248"Imagining Robert" by Christina Longden — https://www.amazon.co.uk/Imagining-Robert-Reschid-Stanley-1828-1911/dp/0992879256Past Truisms CIC — https://www.facebook.com/pasttruismsLorna Young Foundation — https://www.lyf.org.uk/Dark Woods Coffee - https://darkwoodscoffee.co.uk/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  Roifield Brown 23.04.2026 1h 6min

  Carl Chinn sits down in conversation with Roifield Brown, entrepreneur, podcaster, publican and proud Brummie. The son of Windrush generation parents, his Jamaican roots deeply affect him and he tells the remarkable story of his influential great-grandmother, known across her village simply as "Teacher."Roifield also shares his own journey from Birmingham to London, Canada, and California, and why he came back home to be with family. Powerful senses of identity, belonging and inclusiveness inspire his new role at Temper & Brown, his bar in the Jewellery Quarter, where every Sunday means old school reggae, jerk chicken,rice and peas, and a room full of Brummies of every background.https://temperandbrown.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  Adrian Goldberg 16.04.2026 1h 12min

  Carl Chinn sits down in conversation with Byline Times journalist and broadcaster, Adrian Goldberg, to talk identity, football and belonging.Adrian – the proud son of two migrants to Birmingham – tells the story of his father, a Jewish refugee from Germany who came to England via the Kindertransport during the Second World War, moved to Birmingham, where he met his Irish Catholic mother. They discuss what it means to be a Brummie, fandom, and how Adrian's passion for football and punk music has shaped his career.Find out more about Adrian's book: 'Where's The Money Gone? The Battle for the Soul of English Football'. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  Kiran Sahota 09.04.2026 1h 5min

  Carl Chinn is joined by fellow historian Dr Kiran Sahota, revealing her research into the vital roles of South Asian men and women in two world wars and how that heritage empowers today’s communities and young people.Growing up as a young Sikh Brummie in Handsworth, she was influenced by her grandparents and Kiran speaks about how her own family history - spanning the Partition of India, migration and foundry work - has shaped her career today, shining a light on hidden stories.Make sure to keep an eye out for Kiran’s upcoming project: ‘Forgotten India at 80: The Stories You Don’t Know’.Find out more about Kiran’s work here: https://www.bimcic.com/  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  John White 03.04.2026 51min

  In this episode, Carl Chinn sits down in conversation with businessman and former Bullring trader, John White. They talk about growing up around Birmingham’s historic markets, the world of the barrow boys, and a life shaped by hard work, resilience, and community.John shares stories of his early life, leaving school at 13 to work alongside his father, and the characters who defined the old Bullring. He reflects on the changing face of the markets, memorable moments from his journey, and how he went on to build a successful career in business. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.