Residents hope to keep memories of village alive

The Greatham Residents’ Association is setting up the Greatham Archive later this month and is urging people across the town to search out their old photographs and memories.

Malcolm Thompson, chairman of the association said they want to ensure as many remaining photographs as possible don’t get lost in the coming years.

He said: “For generations the photos and memories of the village have been lost either by passing to descendants in faraway places or simply binned by the new house occupants.

“It is our intention to halt the loss of our memories and capture digital images from peoples’ photographs to store on the village website www.greathamvillage.co.uk.

“They will also be given to Hartlepool Library for permanent retention.”

Malcolm went on to say archive will consist of images of old and new photographs and there will also be an audio archive containing interviews with villagers of their memories of the village.

Once up and running the archive will be divided into sections of the village and its history to make it easier for people to use.

But, to make the Greatham Archive a success, it relies on as many people as possible digging out their old photos and allowing them to be copies - owners will keep all orginal material.

Anyone who would like to share a photo can email it to [email protected] or members from the association can visit people and copy the photos.

Malcolm said they will also be looking for newspaper cuttings, drawings and other articles about Greatham for the digital archive.

There will be a launch event for the archive at an opening meeting of the association on Tuesday, March 21, starting at 6.30pm in the village community centre and anyone is welcome to go along to find out more.