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Historic glass negative photographs, taken by F H Stingemore, which had lain in in the basement of Hertfordshire County Hall for over fifty years have now been made available to public thanks to a new imaging process devised by Brian Gravestock, a volunteer at Hertfordshire Archives & Local Studies. The collection of nearly 7,500 original glass plates covers twenty-six counties, of which more than 1,200 relate to Hertfordshire, with around 1,000 each for Cornwall and Surrey. Mr Gravestock has also created a searchable database which can list images by place, date, locality and title. At present, to see the collection you have to visit the Archives & Local Studies office, but they will soon be accessible at all Hertfordshire libraries and will eventually go online. For more information contact HA&LS, County Hall, Pegs Lane, Hertford SG13 8DQ, tel: 01438 737333, www.hertsdirect.org/hals.

Saffron Walden Historical Journal. Latest issue, No.13, Spring 2007, includes ‘The Americans in Walden during WW2’, ‘The new history Town Trail round Walden’ and ‘The Miracle of the Ring and Clavering Chapel’ plus news and reviews. Cost £3.20 from Saffron Walden Historical Society, Treasurer, 9 High Street, Saffron Walden, email: jacqueline.cooper@virgin.net.

BFI hire out wartime films to local groups for £50. Local history societies and other community groups can now provide their members and local communities with a great evening’s entertainment for just £50 by hiring a collection of wartime propaganda films called ‘Bombs at Teatime’. The British Film Institute’s first collection of wartime films includes a film about the importance of water economy called the Five Inch Bather and a film about how to deal with headlice called Unwanted Guests. A couple of films about rural life will lift the spirits of any audience. The Countrywomen is about the Women’s Institutue and Springtime in an English Village was made for showing in Britain’s then African colonies. There are also films about making preparing meals, The Good Housewife in her Kitchen and Two Cooks and a Kitchen, plus Tea Making Tips. To round off the show you can watch Christmas Under Fire and Island People. The programme is 75 minutes long and comes in the form of a DVD which can be shown on-screen via a projector. For more information contact Becky Clarke, Independent Cinema Office, 3rd Floor, Kenilworth House, 79–80 Margaret Street, London W1W 8TA, tel: 0207 0790471, email: beckyc@independentcinemaoffice.org.uk, www.bfi.org.uk/mediatheque.

The Cruel Sea project has recorded the memories of Arab, British, Caribbean, Chinese, Egyptian, Malaysian, Somali and Yemeni seafarers from the Second World War onwards and it has taken over a year to transcribe some 700 interviews which are now in the care of Liverpool Record Office. Some of the memories have been used to write and stage a play at the city’s Everyman Theatre on 5–7 July 2007. Contact ET, 5–9 Hope Street, Liverpool L1 9BH, tel: 0151 709 4776, www.everymanplayhouse.com.

Bedfordshire & Luton Archives & Records Service’s website began in 1999 and during its first four years grew from just under 200,000 visits to nearly 250,000, but in 2004/5 the number of visitors reached 600,000 and in 2005/6 they topped 900,000 with a further 120,000 plus visitors via the A2A website. At the end of March 2006 the site comprised 274 pages and continues to grow. www.bedfordshire.gov.uk/archive/.

A Greater London History & Heritage Handbook is being published at the end of 2007 by Peter Marcan, who has produced a number of similar handbooks for London and South East England over the last twenty years. Peter is currently seeking advertisers to help cover the costs and thereby reduce its selling price. The handbook will be A4 size and advertising space costs from £100 for a full page to £12 for a 1/8th page. Another way to help is to buy the handbook for a pre-publication price of £22 including £2 p&p. For more details contact Peter Marcan, PO Box 3158, London SE1 4RA.

Colston Hall, Bristol’s main concert venue, should be re-named say protestors. The hall, which is in the middle of a £20m redevelopment, is named after a Bristol slavetrader, Edward Colston, and the demand by ‘Artists for a Name Change’ has provoked a furious debate on the BBC Where I Live Talk Bristol website after reports on local radio and regional television. Should the name of any building be changed because it has historical associations with something which now offends or disturbs us? What about exisiting charities and organisations which still benefit from bequests or investments made by slavetraders, should they be made to hand over their assets and income from slavery to groups which work with ethnic minority groups or disadvantaged people? Local historians in Bristol have got involved in the debate and there is little sign of a consensus emerging. Perhaps the only good thing to emerge from it all is an increased public awareness of Bristol’s role in the slave trade. Type ‘Talk Bristol’ into your preferred search engine and you should find an entry for Colston Hall, where you can read well over one hundred comments from individuals who have contributed to the debate so far.

6 April 2007