Pictures from the past preserved

An exciting project by the Advertiser is bringing a whole new dimension to the newspaper’s photographic archive.

Thousands of images from the past will be accessible to the public for the first time, thanks to a joint project by the newspaper’s photographic and IT departments.

They are being helped by a team of keen volunteers, who are working their way through thousands of old photographic negatives, going back more than 60 years, preserving them for the future.

Because of their age, some of the negatives are becoming damaged or corroded, and there is a desperate need for them to be digitised.

Each negative is scanned, saved and labelled digitally.

Some may need restoration before this can take place, so the process is very time-consuming.

This is where the volunteers come in. Since August, they have been working at the Advertiser offices, painstakingly going through dozens of storage boxes dating back to the 1940s. The project will take many more months, possibly years.

One of the volunteers, Mrs Margareta Padgett, of Balderton, said she was finding the process fascinating.

Born in Newark, she has already come across pictures of a number of relatives in the archive. These include her mother, Mrs Gerda Pinkney, who was a leading light of Newark Operatic Society, and her father, Mr Bill Pinkney, for many years secretary of Newark Conservative Club.

There are also pictures of Mrs Padgett herself as a child and, moving to the present, now some of her grandchildren. She has also spotted pictures of old schoolfriends.

“The more I do, the more links I find with my own past,” she said.

Mrs Padgett volunteers for two hours every Friday, getting through about 30 negatives in each session.

The idea for the restoration project came from the head of the Advertiser's photographic department, Marie Wilson.

She has worked with the paper's IT team to offer readers more access than ever before to a unique photographic record.

A section of the Advertiser’s website will allow people to search for photographs by name, place or year. An interactive area will allow them to add their own caption information, to help build a fuller archive.

People will be able to buy the images, either as standard prints, or reproduced on a range of gift items, including canvasses, mugs, jigsaw puzzles and T-shirts.

The IT department is also offering a photo restoration service, which will bring old and damaged photographs back to life from just £15.