'mayday' is not about one person snooping on their neighbour, or their community. But what details of their own everyday lives, people have a desire to register; what people make a 'note' of, what strikes them, what catches their attention. 'mayday' begins to map what was important to them, in that place and at that time, however mundane or ephemeral that may have been.

Contributions to 'mayday97' inevitably include a lot of reference to the excitements caused by that year's electoral 'sea-change' in Britain. We thought, one year on, some reconsideration was called for. This site is part of that process. It will remain on-line for the foreseeable future, hosted by var e-zine, at this URL. There might be other onward developments from this project, including book publication.

cris cheek and Kirsten Lavers

Mass Observation was founded, sixty years ago, in 1937, by Tom Harrison, a self trained anthropologist, Charles Madge, poet and journalist, and Humphrey Jennings, painter, poet, writer and film-maker. Mass Observation challenged the claim of the press to represent the views of ordinary people. Despite the male grouping that mobilised it, Mass Observation archived an extraordinary and incomparably rich body of writing by women.

The Mass Observation Day Survey of May 12th 1937 exploded simplistic notions of collective identity. It compiled reports, written on that day by hundreds of people in all 'walks of life'. The result stands as an interrogation of the construction of meta-narrative. However, Mass Observation did contribute to the sense that 'big brother was watching you', and resulted in some prurient 'othering'. May 12th 1937 was the Coronation day of George VI - a day that was claimed to represent a 'sea-change' for the British people. 'mayday 97' marked another such defining moment with the election of the Labour government after 18 years of Conservative administrations.