Personal papers collected by the Letter In The Attic project

The Letter in the Attic project (2007-8) is collecting letters, diaries and other personal papers related to Brighton and Hove. It is doing this through an appeal to the public, hoping to attract deposits and donations from sections of the community that have not traditionally been users of the East Sussex Record Office. The handover of the collection to the Record Office will take place at the end of the project in winter 2008/9. The aim is to attract 100 individual contributions.

This is a joint project between local community publishers QueenSpark Books, the My Brighton and Hove community history website (www.mybrightonandhove.org.uk), the East Sussex Record Office and the Mass Observation Archive. The project was funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund.

Contributors can either deposit original documents with the East Sussex Record Office or keep the originals in their own care. In the latter case, the project team make digital copies of the documents. If the documents are too long to scan, extracts are selected. Catalogue entries have been written and numbered by contributors and volunteers, with some editing from ESRO staff.

The final collection of papers will form the basis of a book and an education pack published by QueenSpark. The catalogue of the collection will be published on A2A and the My Brighton and Hove website, and will also be held at the East Sussex Record Office.

Numbers have been allocated by staff running the project

These records have not yet been passed on to ESRO as the Letter In The Attic project is still running (Feb 2008) consequently there is no ACC number yet. The handover of records will take place at the end of the project in winter 2008/9.