Ray Gosling's Archive, July 21st

Ray Gosling: His Life, Legacy and Archive

 

Ray Gosling: His Life, Legacy and Archive.
A free to attend event at The National Videogame Arcade - 24-32 Carlton Street - NG1 1NN.
Tickets from EventBrite.

Ray Gosling (1939-2013) was a journalist and broadcaster, known for his man-of-the-people style. More at home reporting from the streets than from a studio, he had – excuse the oxymoron - a uniquely ordinary voice, one that played as well on the pages as it did on the airwaves.

 

Ray was also a hoarder. His archives, once destined for a rubbish dump, have been salvaged and now reside in the Mary Ann Evans building at Nottingham Trent University. On July 21 our National Video Game Arcade is hosting an evening to celebrate Ray's extensive collection of documents, letters, films, magazines and notebooks. 

Ray, who "came to Nottingham because I was running away from Leicester", presented more than 100 television documentaries and many more radio programmes. He once worked as a youth worker in St Ann's and was a force in the local residents' association, fighting the council's plans to bulldoze the largest slum in England. "Gosling rightly realised," wrote Alan Sillitoe, "that the whole district had a life and homogeneity that could never be replaced." Sillitoe reported that Gosling was a catalyst for the locals opposing the worst proposals.

An activist, many would say anarchist, Ray had a genuine interest in people and their plights. During the 60s and 70s he hosted Granada TV's On Site programme. Years later, he was a regular guest presenter on BBC East Midlands, Inside Out, reporting about the local streets and interviewing local people. In his final documentaries he discussed some of his own personal struggles.