For publication, material must either be relevant to some of our current and/or recent activities in travel and the wider world, or have some sort of historical context involving the people and places that we knew in earlier times, or just be something that tickles our interest. Final decisions on material published on the site are my responsibility, and I will take all possible care to avoid anything that is in poor taste or damaging to the reputation of any individual, alive or deceased. Please tell me directly if any part of the site offends you in any way.
If you're not a confident computer user, the easiest way is just to write it all down and send it by post. Don't worry about this, I'm happy to retype your written submissions, but if you ARE computer literate I'm even even happier if you can email me with stuff direct. This can either be as the text of an ordinary email, or as an attachment (assuming that you're up on the technology). I use Microsoft 'Word' to edit the material, but I can convert most other formats. If in any doubt, email me in advance for a quick check. I will try to maintain the general style of the article intact, but I reserve the right to edit things to improve readability. I edit EVERYTHING that goes onto the site, so don't worry about spell checking, punctuation, etc. Any errors or howlers that remain will be my responsibility (but please tell me when you spot one!). Copyright in the material remains with you, and I will always send you a working draft for your approval, before it goes onto the public part of the site.
Images are a bit more difficult. People didn't carry expensive cameras fifty years ago (except Michael Robson and Maurice Robinson, I had a box Brownie!). This explains the dodgy quality of some of the B and W photos already on the site. With photo-manipulation software, I can alter things like colour and contrast, but I can't sharpen images that are fuzzy or out of focus. Also, people are copying their photos on an ordinary scanner, then sending me the results as glossy photos. This causes serious quality problems, because scanning photos always leads to a reduction in the quality of the image, and this is doubled up if I then have to re-scan the photos before putting them onto the site.
There are two possible solutions. Best of all, get a friendly local computer buff to scan the photos for you, telling her or him to scan the pics at the maximum possible resolution, then reduce the result down to an 800 pixels by 600 pixels .jpeg file (pronounced 'jaypeg') then attach the file to an email. This means that I can transfer the image straight onto the site without further degradation. Next best, just post the photos to me, I will scan the images and return them to you. Please write your name on the back of the photo, plus it helps my admin if you enclose a self-addressed envelope.
Either phone me or email me for further information. Thank you in advance for your help in developing this archive of our shared experiences.
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