Here’s a starter for ten. This would be a an interesting project for the group which could involve a lot of villagers. It has good potential for leaving a legacy and doing something that other villages don’t (as far as I know).
From our Constitution:
The group shall be called ” Waldringfield History Group “. Its objectives are to promote the study of the history of the village, tell villagers about it and record it for posterity.
In 1086 the Domesday book recorded the rental value of the village, the number of men by status, the number of horses, pigs and carts. We don’t have that information for even 2018 let alone any other year. We barely know where the roads and paths were a couple of centuries ago, we don’t know what the sea marsh cuttings were for and they are not quite a century old. We’ve no record of whole terraces of houses (can’t remember the name) from the early 20C.
Usually we look at the past, write it down and tell the people in the present about it. This reverses the process so that we ask the people in the present about it, write it down and send it to the people in the future. In just forty six years, which is only as far in future as 1974 is in the past, the detail recorded in the Domesday Book will be 1000 years old. Surely we could do our little bit and start on making our “Present to Future” people in 3066?
There are so many things we don’t know about the village for earlier years. With some effort we could enumerate what we’d ideally like to know about earlier years . We might then imagine ourselves one or more centuries in the future having access to that information that had been recorded by us for now. Assuming that our successors have some interest in local history, to think otherwise would be rather sad, then think of the value of the gift we could pass on to them.
Every decade a Census is done which records some details about every person in the village (not sure about second homes). This is not available in 2021 in summary but not in its entirety until 100 years later. In 2000, for the Millenium, Kit Clark produced her Millenium book of the village. (Incidentally this needs to be scanned and preserved) This shows all houses in the village, who lived in them and some details about them. For future generations this will be a very valuable resource. Imagine if we had it for 1900.
What would be recorded is up to us to best guess. However, we have ways of recording information that would be considered almost magic even a few decades ago. Smartphones, GoPros, Drones, Weather stations are just a few of the technologies that weren’t available even in 2000. As a minimum we have almost a duty to repeat Kit’s book every few years. Just think of how many new houses have been built and how many people have come and gone in those twenty years.
Next year, 2020, feels like an appropriate year to start this and twenty years is a reasonable interval. Some of us are unlikely to feature in the 2040 version, let alone 2066, but hopefully we’d pass on the idea.
To summarise then:
- We should restore and record Kit’s Millenium book.
- We could have copies made of Kit’s book and sell them – Waldringfield-20 Vol 1.
- We should take that as a basis for recording life in the village in 2020 (01Jan to 31Dec).
- The scope would need to be determined as would how we record data. We could include video interviews, video recordings, photographs, weather data readings, ephemera and so on, the list is potentially endless.
- There would need to be consideration as to format and keeping data usable (viz. BBC Laser Discs)
- We could, for example, document a shopping trip/list, a working day, a visit to the Maybush (imagine that for 1919!), a visit to the boatyard or farm, a race at the sailing club, a church service, village hall art group and so on.
- We could have a questionaire (anonomised if necessay) how far away were you born / parents born / education / job etc. etc.
- We might want to have some gathering at the village hall to start this off and involve villagers. It could involve the school. The wildlife group could do a wildlife inventory.
- WSC could do an inventory of boats or similar.
- A summary of the findings could form the material for a 2021 talk.
- I dread to suggest it but this could result in a saleable book. It might also be of interest to social historians.
- We should repeat this at least every twenty years.
