If like me you're old enough to remember when your school had a single computer and it was a BBC Micro, you'll perhaps also have some memory of contributing to The Domesday Project. There's full information below and access to a very good online emulator. For the first time in decades I can have a look at the database and see if anything my primary school, Stockton Wood in Speke was actually included.
It was. Most of the content is by Class 4S, the other cohort in the 4th year juniors (what's now called Year 6) who contributed the introduction, shopping survey (more seats, a sports shop, less litter) and a number of poems ("People say Speke is terrible / But I do not think so / AND I LIVE HERE!"). The section about Liverpool Airport is from "C.H. Elwood and class 4E" who also penned the entry about Speke Hall.
Nothing I wrote has been included. But Sonia Ely (who I only vaguely remember but recognise from her photo at Liverpool Airport) managed to get her interview with Reverend Amos from All Saints Church in and the entry about All Saint's Church is by Sharon Wycherley who I do remember (and was featured in a Liverpool Echo piece about the Fusion Festival in 2018 when she was 44 so that tracks). We used to sit in the playground making daisy chains together.
The only photograph is the one above, of the roundabout at junction of Central Avenue and Western Avenue, which I remember well because my own house on Lovel Road was about half a kilometre directly ahead. I'd also have to get off the bus on that corner sometimes when getting the bus back from secondary school. I once told a girl I had a crush on that loved her standing next to that red telephone box. She laughed in my face. Good memories.
Here's roughly the same place, as close as I can get on Google Maps. Some things have been renewed, the phone box has gone and you can see what the latest buses look like. This view was taken in 2021. Scrolling a bit further up the roads takes us unto April 2023 and even that junction box has gone. The roundabout is still there but couldn't get a good angle. The trees are still there too, but older. The more the world is changing, the more it stays the same.
The only occasion I was able to use the project itself was for a limited time at Central Library, where it was hidden in a wooden television display case on the stage in the old International section (where the children's books are now). I ventured up gingerly and sat in front of it, but was frankly too young to have the patience to navigate the various screens (something which is still cumbersome today). Incredible achievement just slightly to early to be done justice by the technology.
The Domesday Project
"In 1986, 900 years after William the Conqueror’s original Domesday Book, the BBC published the Domesday Project. The project was probably the most ambitious attempt ever to capture the essence of life in the United Kingdom. Over a million people contributed to this digital snapshot of the country."[Domesday Reloaded @ The National Archives]
"A segment from BBC Newsround in November 1986 about the Domesday Project. With footage from the Acorn Domesday exhibition stand."[The Centre for Computing History]
"In addition to offering access to a number of working BBC Domesday systems here at the museum, we wanted to share a virtual method of exploring the system through an emulator that works in your browser. You can explore the discs of the BBC Domesday system in a fully emulated BBC Master with an LVROM player."[Centre for Computing History]
"Domesday86 is a project that aims to recreate the experience of the original BBC Domesday project using modern hardware and software. On this site you will find a growing collection of documentation for the original Acorn/BBC Domesday project as well as details of the Domesday86 project itself."[Domesday86]
"Jeffrey Darlington, Andy Finney and Adrian Pearce describe the groundbreaking BBC Domesday Project of 1986, and explain how its unique multimedia collection has been preserved."[Ariadne]
"The BBC Domesday Project began in 1986 when the public were invited to contribute images and text about their local areas for hosting on a leading edge technology of the day, the Advanced Interactive Video System. In 2011, the project was very successfully resurrected as the Domesday Reloaded Project with new contributions and as an online resource on the internet."[Computer Weekly]
"The entry for Stanford in the Vale and the surrounding area, created by children at the Primary School, is repeated below. It provides a unique "snapshot" of the village as it was 38 years ago."[Stanford in the Vale]
"A segment from BBC Newsround in November 1986 about the Domesday Project. With footage from the Acorn Domesday exhibition stand."
[The Centre for Computing History]
"In addition to offering access to a number of working BBC Domesday systems here at the museum, we wanted to share a virtual method of exploring the system through an emulator that works in your browser. You can explore the discs of the BBC Domesday system in a fully emulated BBC Master with an LVROM player."
[Centre for Computing History]
"Domesday86 is a project that aims to recreate the experience of the original BBC Domesday project using modern hardware and software. On this site you will find a growing collection of documentation for the original Acorn/BBC Domesday project as well as details of the Domesday86 project itself."
[Domesday86]
"Jeffrey Darlington, Andy Finney and Adrian Pearce describe the groundbreaking BBC Domesday Project of 1986, and explain how its unique multimedia collection has been preserved."
[Ariadne]
"The entry for Stanford in the Vale and the surrounding area, created by children at the Primary School, is repeated below. It provides a unique "snapshot" of the village as it was 38 years ago."
[Stanford in the Vale]
Archive
"This colour documentary film presented by Mark Curry from the BBC's Blue Peter programme, follows the work of the BBC Blue Peter appeal in 1986 that raised over two million pounds for the Royal Commonwealth Society for the Blind (Sightsavers) in Africa."
[Screen Archive South East]
"In July 1982, a 42-year-old addict in a San Jose, California jail became paralyzed--unable to move or talk. His symptoms, caused by a bad batch of synthetic heroin, were indistinguishable from those associated with Parkinson's disease, a degenerative nerve disorder that strikes the elderly."
This is a Horizon/NOVA programme with the US voiceover.
[WGBH]
"This week's Antiques Roadshow comes from Ipswich Town Hall in Ipswich, Suffolk and features a three train musical bracket clock made by the 18th Century London clockmaker Thomas Gardner."
[BBC Rewind]
Programmes
Programmes
"Preparations underway for McGuigan boxing fight and rugby international match. Report shows British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Outside Broadcast (OB) unit setting up satellite dishes and other television equipment."[RTE]
"This is a story of treachery, death and retribution."[Off The Telly]
"From out of an empty black screen, a solo accordion sounds a couple of chords. Then, a harmonica strikes up a wistful tune, a lilting accompaniment falls in behind, and the picture suddenly lights up to reveal the features of a gruff man buried deep in a trench coat, hat pulled down low, furtively leaning against a lamppost."[Off The Telly]
"Paul Jackson visits the purpose-built TV studios of the longest running medical drama in the world. Born out of necessity (as a weapon in the weekly battle for audience-share on Saturday nights) "Casualty" has become one of BBC 1's most consistent performers."[BBC Sounds]
"Preparations underway for McGuigan boxing fight and rugby international match. Report shows British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Outside Broadcast (OB) unit setting up satellite dishes and other television equipment."
[RTE]
"This is a story of treachery, death and retribution."
[Off The Telly]
"From out of an empty black screen, a solo accordion sounds a couple of chords. Then, a harmonica strikes up a wistful tune, a lilting accompaniment falls in behind, and the picture suddenly lights up to reveal the features of a gruff man buried deep in a trench coat, hat pulled down low, furtively leaning against a lamppost."
[Off The Telly]
"Paul Jackson visits the purpose-built TV studios of the longest running medical drama in the world. Born out of necessity (as a weapon in the weekly battle for audience-share on Saturday nights) "Casualty" has become one of BBC 1's most consistent performers."
[BBC Sounds]
'It has always been heavily censored. When the show started, we weren't even allowed to say the word toilet'[The Guardian]
"Eamonn Holmes is joined live via satellite from Melbourne by the cast of Neighbours - the Australian soap opera that has rapidly become a phenomenon in the UK. Originally broadcast 13 October, 1987."[BBC Archive]
"Eamonn Holmes is joined live via satellite from Melbourne by the cast of Neighbours - the Australian soap opera that has rapidly become a phenomenon in the UK. Originally broadcast 13 October, 1987."
[BBC Archive]
Politics
"In the aftermath of the recent General Election, it is worth remarking upon the increasingly symbiotic relationship between politics and the media."
[Off The Telly]
"This report is published in the 50th year of BBC Television. It is hard to equate the vitality which has produced EastEnders, Yes Minister and Crimewatch with an institution venerable enough to have been responsible for the world's first national television mission 50 years ago. Yet looked at per way, BBC Television has been td long enough to prove that today's programmes are part of a tradition of excellence on which the British public can rely, whether in drama, comedy, and factual programming or, indeed, in sport, music, entertainment, education, news or current affairs."
[World Radio History]
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