Spotlight on... The People's Archive

03 June 2010

With so much of North Staffordshire changing so fast, RENEW has dedicated an entire website to encourage people to share their memories, to look back at the way they were.

Called The People’s Archive the site is the brainchild of Nick Newman, programme manager for RENEW.

He explained the thinking behind the archive: “Big projects get lots of publicity but some of the more grass roots ones, such as knocking down a street of houses that have been there for a hundred years, weren’t being captured.

“All kinds of images and memories were sitting on people’s computers or in cupboards so to make sure they weren’t lost forever and because they are of interest to people for things like family trees, local and social history, we decided to gather it all up before it gets dumped.

“People do tend to just dump stuff when they move and if that happened, some valuable material that could be of enormous interest would be lost forever. The internet is a great tool for storing masses of information.”

The idea of the archive is to give a voice to people in areas that didn’t have a voice before. It’s an opportunity for them to say this is what I think has gone right... and also what’s gone wrong.

Nick is keen to stress the Archive is not intended as a mouthpiece for RENEW. Far from it. “The site is edited to keep it bite sized and interesting but it’s not censored, though libel or abuse will be removed. That aside, it’s okay to be critical,” he adds.

The archive is run for RENEW by The Sentinel. Columnist Martin Tideswell is responsible for running the site. He commented: “I suggested we put in a bid to run this because chronicling the changing face of North Staffs is something we do every day. It’s why the paper’s here, to show what’s happening in our communities. It made perfect sense for us to do this.”

The Sentinel sees the archive as a community history project that will live on beyond the timespan of the current contract, which continues till next April. “Whatever happens with RENEW, our contract will continue in some form. We’ve already built up 1500 photographs, numerous stories and 55 videos. It’s really coming into its own. There’s lots of stuff on there, unique streets and places that have now vanished forever but live on in the web,” added Martin.

Sentinel editor Mike Sassi explains here why these memories matter and urges everyone to get involved.

Martin added that the archive is not just for those affected by RENEW. The People’s Archive is for everyone living and working in North Staffordshire.