Welcome to 'This Is The North' Podcast, your source of transformative conversations. An intentional challenge to the systems holding back the North of England. Hosted by Alison Dunn, an award-winning charity chief executive and former solicitor. This podcast is supported by the Society Matters Foundation and is dedicated to curating and sharing knowledge, powering the change we need for a more equal and inclusive society.

In this episode, Alison sits down with Richard O'Neill MBE - storyteller, author, playwright, and Professor in Practice at Durham University. For centuries, Richard's Romani traveller ancestors were story keepers in the Northeast, travelling from Newcastle to Yorkshire to Carlisle, listening to stories in villages and towns, then carrying them forward. They were, as Richard puts it, "illiterate in reading and writing, but incredibly literate in communication."

But this conversation isn't just about oral tradition. It's about discovering that words Alison has spoken her entire life - "gadji," "chav," "chavi" - come from Romani. Evidence of centuries woven into the Geordie dialect itself. It's about why Richard's musician friend couldn't grasp the concept of chatting to a stranger at a Morrisons checkout. "We are story people here," Richard explains. And it's about why Richard refused a million pounds to appear on reality TV that embeds stereotypes rather than documents real lives.

Richard and Alison explore why the Northeast has a rhythm to its speech that makes storytelling natural, how a 3-year-old and 103-year-old laughed at the same things during a care home storytelling session, and why teaching children how narrative works is our defense against misinformation. They discuss AI as "the new steam," Richard's accidental career that started with one phone call, and the most powerful story Richard tells, a beautiful story about empathy and individual decency. A reminder that when stories are told from the heart, they change how we see each other. Those are the stories we keep.

Timestamps:

00:00 Introduction

01:30 Traveller Identity and Story Keeping

04:20 Storytelling in Education

07:26 The Traveller Community

10:47 Media Stereotypes

16:47 Storytelling in the Age of AI

21:16 Richard's Journey as a Storyteller

27:37 The Most Powerful Story

2026 is the National Year of Reading, and Richard's work at Seven Stories reminds us why that matters.

Host: Alison Dunn

Guest: Richard O'Neill MBE

Learn more: Seven Stories, Newcastle - sevenstories.org.uk

This podcast is produced by Purpose Made.

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