COUNTY residents are being invited to be a part of a rare history project with Hampshire Archives and Local Studies and Wessex Film and Sound Archive, documenting how lives have changed during these extraordinary months of living through a global pandemic.

The ‘Making History’ project seeks written, audio or video accounts – anonymous or not – of life during and after the pandemic. Photographs can also be submitted as well as leaflets, posters, newsletters or similar items issued by Hampshire organisations such as local government, schools, businesses and voluntary or community organisations.

A parallel project - ‘Making History: Making Movies’ - is seeking film content that reflects people’s experience of life generally in 2020. Five minutes of film (edited, or a straight five minutes) can be submitted, to form part of this larger two-year project to showcase the work of amateur filmmakers from 1920 to the present day.

Cllr Seán Woodward, executive member for recreation and heritage at the county council, said: “We are all living through an exceptional time not just in Hampshire, but nationally and globally. As caretakers of documents spanning more than 1,000 years, Hampshire Archives and Local Studies is inviting people to submit their stories for a project preserving details of this unprecedented period.”

He added: “These are really exciting initiatives. Those who come forward can have their snapshot of life in Hampshire in 2020 recorded in the archives for future generations to see, as part of our shared history.”

To register an interest in taking part email archives.enquiries@hants.gov.uk.

Hampshire Archives and Local Studies, based at Hampshire Record Office along with Wessex Film and Sound Archive, is currently closed, so please do not bring items, or send items in the post, until we re-open. This information will be available on our website at www.hants.gov.uk/archives.

For further details about the project, visit https://www.hants.gov.uk/librariesandarchives/archives/collections/collecting-covid19-archives.