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2011 Diaries I am pleased to announce that we have another new Cambridgeshire Community Archive Group (CCAN). The beautiful village of Elton in the very far north west of Cambs has joined our brilliant community archives network. They have a very good village society and have a wonderful heritage project on the go, with exciting events such as their very own ‘Big Dig’ and the involvement of the whole community and village school is something to be admired, I had a lovely visit to see them and was made very welcome. I am really looking forward to seeing the Elton CCAN group additions to the CCAN website. CCAN is Cambridgeshire’s online community archive, a place to see old pictures, photos, written and recorded memories, pod-casts and video clips along with living history, as groups record their activities from today for the history of tomorrow.  Elton Society
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2011 Diaries I had a nice time visiting the very active St Neots Community Archives Group the other week. This is a great CCAN group, very busy and full of ideas and upcoming projects. The St Neots CCAN group includes adjoining parishes such as Yelling, Eaton Socon, Wyboston, Staploe and Paxton to name but a few. The group met for their meeting in the St Neots Musuem which is well worth a visit if you are ever that way. I am particularly fond of this museum as it is home to a life size wall chart depicting my relative, James Toller, The Eynesbury Giant. St. Neots Community Archive has been set up to collect information about the past from the above-mentioned parishes and the surrounding villages. If you have any pictures, old maps or interesting stories that you would like to be included in the St. Neots Community Archive, please contact Pam Ostler at St. Neots Museum or Sue Jarrett at ccanstneots@gmail.com If you would like further details of how to have your own CCAN site then please get in touch.  St Neots CCAN Group  James Toller Last week I visited the Soham CCAN (Cambridgeshire Community Archives Network). They are a very active lot with their history in Soham! There are several history related groups and even the museum, which will soon have a home and all the groups are linked one way or another. The Soham CCAN group have been working on some great research projects such as the evacuees, the Jewish School and they have been busy collecting and recording oral history around the town. I really enjoyed my visit to the group, as not only were they a lovely bunch but I also used to live in Soham and I always enjoy my visits back there.  2011 Diaries I had a lovely visit out to the brilliant new Community Centre and café in Cottenham a couple of weeks ago. I had a nice meeting there with Cottenham Community Archives Group (CCAN) and was so impressed by all the hard work and interesting things that the group are working on. They already have 20 pages, with over 360 old and interesting pictures already!!! The wonderful new Community Centre and café is well worth a visit if you are going through Cottenham and is a fantastic example of a community lead centre with such a great buzz about it. To find out more click here - http://cottenhamcc.org/ To get involved with the Cottenham Community Archive and find out more just visit Cottenham CCAN Are you interested in local history, or just in finding out more about the place that you live? Do you have any stories about Cottenham that you would like to share with others? To find out more about this project contact the Cottenham Village Society or email cottenhamarchive@live.co.uk  Cottenham Community Centre  Cottenham Community Centre  Cottenham CCAN & Cafe 2011 Diaries I visited the Ely CCAN Group yesterday, at their meeting held in Ely Museum. Ely CCAN group is a friendly and very active group and I was pleased to see some familiar faces there. Many of members of the group also attend Mike Petty’s Fenland Fridays at the Ely Library. The Ely CCAN group have a great working relationship with the Ely Museum and have a good balance of members doing different tasks such as oral history interviews, area photographs and local history. A well known local photographer had also attended the meeting yesterday to bring along some of his amazing photographs for the group to see and add. I used to live in Ely myself, so I'll have to dig out my Ely photos and write up any tales I have and add them to the Ely group! ELY Community Archives Group Are you interested in local history, or just in finding out more about the place that you live? Do you have any stories about Ely that you would like to share with others? You can contact the Ely Community Archive Group through the Ely Museum on 01353 666655 or email us at elyarchive@hotmail.com  Ely Community Archives Group 2011 2011 Diaries I have been helping out with a fantastic new project in Stilton, Cambs. I had been meaning to go to Stilton for a long time, I always thought I'd take an afternoon drive out there to visit and buy some Stilton cheese and then go on to Melton Mowbray to get a pork pie and then find another local foody place, just for fun. When I finally managed to visit Stilton a few weeks ago I was surprised how close of the A1 it was. I had always noticed the signs for it on the A1 when going up towards Peterborough but thought that it must be several miles away, when in fact it is right next to the A1. When you enter Stilton - which is in Cambridgeshire - you immediately take note of the impressively wide main street, which you'll soon realise was the original 'A1' or rather the Great North Road. It definitely has the 'Roman Road' look and feel about it but most likely goes way back, as a routeway, into prehistory. The current A1 is a bypass to Stilton. The next thing you'll notice are the wonderful old and impressive buildings lining this road. Several of which were very large coaching houses for weary travellers of the past to take rest. I had a lovely meeting with the Stilton history expert in one of these, now restored, coaching inns, where we discussed all the exciting plans for the upcoming projects in Stilton including Stilton CCAN, Stilton Cheese, Films and Heritage Centres :) One of the rooms we had coffee in was called the Turpin room, where the famous Dick Turpin, Highway Man, is reputed to have stayed. We of course had to eat lots of different Stilton cheeses!!! https://www.ccan.co.uk    2011 diaries I had the great pleasure of giving Cottenham Village Society a talk on the same night that they celebrated their 40th Anniversary! It was a really special occasion and so good to see that societies such as these across the county can go on for so long and still remain active, interesting and be such an important part of their village life. Cottenham also has its very own CCAN group and it is going very well, with enthusiastic group members adding archives to the site. Click here to find out more.    I had a lovely evening a couple of weeks ago at the Haddenham & Aldreth 1940’s pre-event to their amazing Blossoms & Bygones weekend which is coming up in May. The chapel in Aldreth was decked out in 1940’s gear, from banners and flags, clothes and furniture to a gramophone (working and playing great tunes) and original film projector and reels. The building was packed out for this lovely gathering and the evening kicked off with Mike Petty giving us a great talk about Cambs during WWII, I then followed with a brief stint about 1940’s makeup and style, finishing of the evening with a local chap giving his memories of the war - and of course there was a couple of lovely tea breaks with home made cake and bread and butter pudding. I can’t wait until the main event in May :) Pictures below from the evening and then the main event. In the meantime why not check out the Haddenham & Aldreth CCAN Group! |
