Newspapers a key to the past

We all have that moment when we can describe exactly what we were doing and where we were when the news came through of the death of someone we thought important. . I guess for my generation it would have been the assassination of J.F Kennedy, for my parents perhaps the news that President Roosevelt had passed away and for my son’s generation the death of Lady Diana.
There will be other candidates, be it the news that we were at war on that September morning in 1939, the death of Churchill, the surrender of the Argentineans or the victory of our preferred political war in an election.
And of course for most of us it will still be a newspaper which provides the details. True in this digital age we may first hear the breaking news from a radio the television or the internet but the newspaper will still give the fullest coverage.
It was here that I read the coroner’s report of the suicide of my great grandmother’s brother her own drunken fight with the police and the fact that my uncle was missing in 1942 in the Far East.
So newspapers are a vital way for both the family and local historian to track the past. Two very good sites for British newspapers are http://newspapers11.bl.uk/blcs/ and www.britishnewspapersarchive.co.uk
And for those of us in Manchester and who possess a library card there are the Times, and Manchester Guardian and Observer which are all on line at http://www.manchester.gov.uk/info/500140/library_online_services
PIcture, front page of Derby Evening Telegraph April 17th 1943