This article discusses an example of public engagement involving university staff and students, a local charity and older residents in a community oral history project. It is based on participants' oral and written accounts of their involvement. It critically examines the meanings of public, engagement and public good created through the project in relation to neoliberalism. It discusses publics as 'emergent' and various public engagement activities as 'assemblages', formed in particular historical and ideological discursive contexts, and reflects critically on the usefulness of these conceptualisations. It also reviews the operation of a potential counterpublic and its implications.