Launch event, November 2008

The Presentation by Jack Latimer

Photo by John Desborough

A Social Occasion

Photo by John Desborough

Jack Latimer

Photo by John Desborough

Enthusiasm for the project: a contibutor with a Letter in the Attic journal

Photo by John Desborough

Peter, Paul and Mark Whitehouse, with their grandfather's (or great-grandfather's) letters from the trenches of the First World War

Photo by John Desborough

Yvonne Bligh, with the Letter in the Attic contributor's certificate

Photo by John Desborough

David Smart

Photo by John Desborough

Volunteers Sheila Selway & Judith Owen

Photo by Photo by John Desborough

Dr Francis Clark-Lowes

Photo by John Desborough

David & Margaret Pearce

Photo by John Desborough

Seb Phillips and Mark Conroy, teaching staff at Cardinal Newman school, who worked on the Letter in the Attic education pack

Photo by John Desborough

Tricia Leonard

Photo by John Desborough

A large gathering of volunteers and contributors got together for the launch of the Letter in the Attic project; the event took place at the Community Base in Queens Road, Brighton on the evening of the 27th November 2008.

This was the culmination of a year of work by volunteers collecting and archiving letters, diaries of daily life, travel journals and war letters written centuries ago or in the last few years.

The team were co-ordinated and led by Jack Latimer who made the presentation. Jack explained how the project came about and the progress it had made: over 780 items have been collected from 80 contributors so far.

Actors gave readings from the letters and diaries and there were laptops available so everyone could preview the collection online. You can see the Letter in the Attic online exhibition.

Each contributor was given a free copy of the Letter in the Attic journal and a certificate.  The volunteer team will continue to work on the project to build the collection further.  The archive will be fully live on December 5th.