Presentation

WElcome - joe Thompson, Damon Rogers

Wouldn’t it be great if..

That’s the phrase that started BOTH the projects we want to show you today 

We also knew that we wanted them to tell interesting local stories, but in a new compelling way. They had to have great community involvement (both face to face and online social media) and be templates that could be reused in the future

SO 

NOW our most recent project.. Lowestoft Our Fallen 

We will be giving a demonstration of its new features including an insight into the depth of research we have needed to do.

But first a quick recap [Felixstowe tab] 

It started in response to a project in Felixstowe where having identified their fallen AND the home addresses, they put posters on the relevant streets lampposts saying for example “Walter Cotton lived at no 22 just over there, George Ramsey lived opposite at No 7 just there etc. This seemed to us a great way to bring history to life and onto our streets. Knowing that these brave locals walked out of the VERY homes we pass each day (or maybe even live in) never to return seemed very poignant.

But we quickly discovered that only incomplete and often conflicting partial lists existed for Lowestoft, we set out to put that right. Working closely with Commonwealth War Graves Commission, Roll of Honour website and other primary sources we created an Excel file with 2000 rows. In some ways this was the hardest part of the project. Checking every entry and then expanding it, but we knew it had to be right!

Excel spreadsheet tab]

Then we thought.. Wouldn’t it be great if.. we created an online spreadsheet that was easy to search, sort and also simple to contribute to [email link] with photos, memories from family and cros linking with other similar records, maybe linking to the events they were involved in to go deeper

DRUMROLL home page On our homepage. Indeed many local families did contribute. It has resulted in 350 new photographs, 60 new family memories and as Damon will discuss discovery of over 100 Lowestoft people never recorded before on any memorial. These 5% were sadly lost to time, forgotten. 

At the top, we have links  to the all important MAPS, Medals and Memorials sections. Also links to a quick video on using the resource and quick links that filter by family or streets most affected

Then on to the first section highlights 4 of these locals and  the section changes, on each visit to the site. Because a key aim is to celebrate their lives not just list their deaths

A quote section that works in a similar way gives an insight into that person and encourages further discovery

A chance to virtually explore one of the streets most affected, in this case…

And via the listing section a way to search, sort and then go direct to any record.. 

Currently it sorts by most recent updated record (another reason to vist regularlt! [Sort by Surname, then Age] Over half of the 2000 were mid 20s or younger [Damon 14 16 year olds]

Howe [search].. glad you asked LOL

Doris Howe

Doris, a 17 year old civilian was a casualty of the Waller raid. (use to show elements of page)

Main para, created by combining most of the key fields, thus making it more readable

Got an Update? Creates an email with all key info in 

Memories - Usually contributed by family and can give a fascinating insight into the person and the times in which they lived. Whilst not verifiable from primary sources (hence different colour) it is a valuable part of the project 

Same Age -  In this case 26 were 17 like Doris. looking at those first three tells us navy army navy..rhs dots

Moderated comments - involve community

Extra Details - Service, Memorial etc

Lived at address and  Map - Zoom in (lat, lon) interesting when a lost st...

Photos - sent by Doris’s nephew Gary and includes Credits important > click enlarge etc

Tags - in this case Waller raid - go into more detail, list others involved. Pulling content together in different ways

Same street block  Doris lived at 6 Fir Lane Sadly many others in that lane were also casualties - 7 WWI, 12 WW2. In fact, coincidentally the 2nd and 3rd on the list Victor Longthorne and Arthur George, departed from the SAME house 27 years apart, never to return. A good example of the benefits of weaving this information together

Also Died DORIS died on 13th Jan 1942, the site dynamically finds all others who died on this date and lists themin a block. Often grouped by unit/vessel in this case tells us quickly it must have been a raid the majority being civilians. You can tell they are civilians because those in army, navy or air force have a brown, green or blue strip next to their photo. Also died tells us (white/green/ brown /blue) mostly civilians must be a raid > Ernest Morling

End with Central Map and postcode map, I wonder Why idea

If there was more time we could also have told you about... Walter Culham who with the Royal Horse Artillery won medals in Mesopotamia OR Alfred Paul a local fish curer who survived the 1914 Battle of the Falklands only to be lost in a torpedo attack by one of Germany's very first U Boats.. we could go on

Questions Now - after which we are happy to spend a quick 10 mins on our other project Street Stroll if there is time

Frederick Baker | Drupal Views | WebBook | MSWord | ByStreet | BookQR | CSVTXT | Archive.Org | 

Wouldn’t it be great if..

we could take our list of high street businesses and turn it into list of shopfronts positioned horizontally next to each other giving the impression of walking virtually down the high street. Clicking on a shop you are interested in would show you more details

>Darren shop

Pleased but then we thought

Wouldn’t it be great if..

We could take the current shop stroll and create a version with an old photo of each building frontage to show how each has changed (or stayed the same) and have it so clicking on each old photo takes you to a history of the building and other old photos of that building

first thing we had to solve was there were few old photos initially available and those we had were never front on, people like to take photos looking up/down the street. We used programming to alter the perspective to achieve a front on view and the community to source more old photos. Local historians were kind enough to share historical details of each building, which we are constantly adding to.

>Bayfield butterfly CLICK

bury Saint Edmund stroll 

and we would love to do a future project involving 10 streets created by the people in those streets

SCROLL... I live at 62 High Street old barlays bank dodrop in for a coffee and chat :-)

These can be viewed at the main website LowestoftOldandNow details in the leaflet