The Nice People Thread, No.16: A Universe of Niceness.

PasturesNew

vivatifosi wrote: »

In terms of newspapers, I read recently that the British Newspaper Archive has won permission to digitise the Trinity Mirror papers, which will more than double the amount of historical British papers allowed online.

I don't know what Trinity Mirror is ... but my interest is mostly "really local stuff.... for local people" Searching out those little town stories where Mrs X has lost her cat and Master Bobbins was caught scrumping by PC Dickum and was sent to industrial school

Especially handy for BMD announcements/memoriams.

As I see it - newspapers were set up by toffs, so they could all let each other know where they were visiting and what they were doing.

They included some crime stuff just to let people know that plods existed and you could get caught for stuff.

As more people learnt to read they liked to write the sensationalist Victorian stories just to flog more copies, to make more money.

The little towns hadn't much toff stuff to report on, so were just a vehicle for local advertising in the main, with a bit of crime, some local council stuff and a few columns of bikes for sale and BMDs.

I know my gt-gt-gf's sister's husband was selling a pony/cart in the early 1900s, just before he sold his little fresh fish shop.

My local historian dropped a little clue in the other week that they are going to digitise more of what is my main town of interest for one part of the tree... they currently only do 1939 ... a tiny bit of 1920 ... then stuff before 1918, and so not very recent. I desperately need 1939-1959 to be digitised to answer my one burning question ... I am after one article I KNOW was written somewhere in that timeframe and exists... but the archives haven't even manually indexed the papers, so there's no way to find it (unless I physically turn up and slowly finger through every column, of every page, of every whole newspaper, published 6x a week every year for 20 years' worth).

LydiaJ

Pics elsewhere as requested.

Doozergirl

PasturesNew wrote: »

Did anybody else have school houses? Where teachers lived?

My junior school was built in 71/72 and at the entrance driveway there was a caretaker's house.

My secondary school was built ~1940 - Grade I listed just because the designer was "a regarded architect with a vision". It was built with a row of houses, possibly 3 terraced houses, 2 flats and a detached house - for teachers - and at the start of that was an old "gatehouse" where the caretaker lived - this was a retained (17th/18th century) old feature from the original wall enclosing the manor house that donated the land for a school.

When I met "my friend" in the mid-70s she was living in one of the teacher houses - and her parents are still there! They had a 4-bed end of terrace one as she had 3 brothers.

Yes, my primary school was a fairly modern build and the caretaker had a bungalow on site. Lawrence Llewelwyn-Bowen was a notable former pupil.

My first secondary school was Grade 1 listed too, but a little older. It had a Norman undercroft, the Archbishop’s throne in the school hall and we took Geography in Queen Elizabeth 1’s bedroom. History was held in a gallery where the ladies would exercise. My table by the window would never sit straight as the ladies would walk around the edges of the room and had worn the boards down! It was beautiful with a fascinating history.

My second secondary school was less interesting but I’ve just learned that Naomi Campbell went there.

PasturesNew

Doozergirl wrote: »

.... Archbishop...

I think you just won the Posh Alert award for schooling

PasturesNew

Earlier today I randomly discovered a randomly written piece about their life/village that was online. It'll have been the sort of thing a child would've got written down from their elderly mother, or even granny.

She was born in 1916 in a tiny village in Cornwall, at the beach - and the piece was written in 1983. When she said those words she just thought it was for her immediate family's benefit .... never imagining that it'd end up with the whole world being able to read it 35 years on and beyond.

She's just "having a conversation" randomly, so tossing in what people did, things they did, named individuals etc. Covering WW2, she'd just got married and 3 years later her husband's father died suddenly - and the local "big cheese" let them stay on at the farm and gave them six months free rent to get established.... and shortly afterwards they were out fire fighting through the night, with 500 incendiary bombs that dropped on their farmland (incendiary bombs don't explode, they just land and start fires).

Fascinating little read it was... about 12pp.

rameheritage.co.uk/images/article_images/Diary_pdf.pdf

Not a link as they'll see the stats spike and look at the source.

vivatifosi

PasturesNew wrote: »

I don't know what Trinity Mirror is ... but my interest is mostly "really local stuff.... for local people" Searching out those little town stories where Mrs X has lost her cat and Master Bobbins was caught scrumping by PC Dickum and was sent to industrial school

Especially handy for BMD announcements/memoriams.

Trinity Mirror have loads of local titles,some of which may be of interest. Here's a list:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Trinity_Mirror_titles

PasturesNew

vivatifosi wrote: »

...

I've looked it up.

My "paper of interest" is a small outfit, started in 1888 by a family and then sold to another family... they branched out into "local editions" within 20 miles and the paper's printed about 2-3 miles from everywhere I lived in the area.

Circulation's about 13,000 in a 10-15 mile radius of their printing works. It's "THE" local paper for the area, the one everybody buys.

It looks like it was 2012 before it was sold to somebody bigger than "one man, his wife and dog". The "bigger boys" who bought it are this crowd: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_World

Reading that it looks like Trinity bought them in 2015.... so it is probably on the "maybe" list, but I doubt it's a high priority for them... a backwater item of not much interest is how I'd see the bigger boys would see the title.

vivatifosi

PasturesNew wrote: »

I've looked it up.

My "paper of interest" is a small outfit, started in 1888 by a family and then sold to another family... they branched out into "local editions" within 20 miles and the paper's printed about 2-3 miles from everywhere I lived in the area.

Circulation's about 13,000 in a 10-15 mile radius of their printing works. It's "THE" local paper for the area, the one everybody buys.

It looks like it was 2012 before it was sold to somebody bigger than "one man, his wife and dog". The "bigger boys" who bought it are this crowd: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_World

Reading that it looks like Trinity bought them in 2015.... so it is probably on the "maybe" list, but I doubt it's a high priority for them... a backwater item of not much interest is how I'd see the bigger boys would see the title.

BNA does regular updates to show what they've just added, maybe worth checking in on from time to time. Here's this week's:

https://blog.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/2018/02/05/new-titles-5-february-2018/

vivatifosi

This is for Pyxis ... Falcon Heavy take off due 6.30pm our time tomorrow.

https://www.space.com/39594-spacex-falcon-heavy-maiden-launch-preview.html

Pyxis

vivatifosi wrote: »

This is for Pyxis ... Falcon Heavy take off due 6.30pm our time tomorrow.

https://www.space.com/39594-spacex-falcon-heavy-maiden-launch-preview.html

Thank you! :T

Unfortunately, I will be on my way to AmDram, so I'll have to watch it later.

I'll record the news in case it's on there.