Come with us and enjoy trip into past
AFREE new online picture archive from the owners of the Rochdale Observer is being launched as the nation enters another lockdown.
Despite events being cancelled nationwide the new tool allows people to celebrate and share historical moments such as Bonfire Night and Remembrance Sunday.
Memory Lane, which is being backed by broadcaster, author and historian Professor Kate Williams, is a rich, interactive and nostalgic archive with photos searchable by location, date, topics, people, categories and more.
It aims to create a bigger, more inclusive picture of history by allowing you to preserve, discover, share and colourise the past – just like the images here.
And it can also provide a home for photographs that may have been gathering dust in the loft or at the back of a cupboard for years.
Professor Williams said: “Photographs are one of the most important social documents we have access to, allowing us to understand society and communities from different generations.
“We learn so much more about our past when we look at the photographs of everyday people as opposed to formal photos of royalty and aristocracy.
“If important images languish in the loft, there is a real danger they may be lost forever.”
The launch follows a YouGov survey carried out for Memory Lane suggesting that 80 per cent of Brits haven’t digitised all their photos.
According to the survey:
67pc of the population are looking for something that brings them comfort
More than half of UK adults (55pc) are thinking about what we did before the pandemic
Almost a third of the population (31pc) are looking at old photographs to get themselves through these strange times.
So Memory Lane is asking the public to preserve, discover, celebrate and share images which matter to them.
Check it out for yourself at Memorylane.co.uk