The University of Westminster Archive has been running an Oral History Project since 2010 recording memories of the Regent Street Polytechnic and Polytechnic of Central London. Oral history is composed of spoken testimony, stories and experience and is a valuable way of capturing individual understandings and perspectives of the recent past.
Although official documents provide a vital window into the past, oral history often provides a much richer picture of what life was really like and what people really thought.
The University of Westminster has undergone many significant changes in its lifetime from the days of the Regent Street Polytechnic when people took courses in mainly vocational subjects, to the politically charged days of the Polytechnic of Central London when student protests were commonplace.