Airship disaster and road safety feature in new digital archive

From this Friday, people will be able to see footage dating back nearly a century after the new sound and film archive has been opened at the Treasure House in Beverley.

The earliest footage dates back to a newsreel taken in 1921, showing men in boats rowing out to the wreckage of the R38 airship, after it broke in two and plummeted into the Humber estuary, killing 44 of the 49 people on board.

The most recent dates back to the 1990s, with a film about paranormal investigators in Beverley.

Sound archives including interviews with local people talking about their lives, local music and even church services recorded in Keyingham in the 1960s will also be made available through the new service which has been set up under the Digital History for a Digital Future project.

Councillor Jane Evison, portfolio holder for cultural services, housing and public protection at East Riding Council, said: "The Film and Sound Archive is part of our answer to the growing challenge of digital preservation.

"It's not just about film reels and cassette tapes, but also the records that we produce on our computers.

"All of these are fragile and in danger of becoming obsolete due to rapid changes in technology."

"The digital records we create today will form the history of tomorrow, and the Film and Sound Archive is the first step towards safeguarding the East Riding's digital heritage for future generations."

The archive contains 55 film recordings and 28 sound recordings, but the number is expected to double over the next six months as film and sound records are digitised, and as new material comes in.

Sam Bartle, collections officer, who has been responsible for converting the footage, said his personal favourite was a road safety information film made in and around Beverley in 1946, called the Man with the Notebook and also starring the painter Fred Elwell.

"Beverley looks fairly similar – apart from the vehicles," he commented.

There is also newsreel of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth visiting bomb-damaged Hull in 1941, and film of the closure of Market Weighton railway station on the Hull to York railway line, a victim of the 1960s Beeching cuts.

Mr Bartle, who is in the process of digitising footage of Hodgson's tannery in the town, said the archive should appeal to everyone from the academic to older people wanting to reminisce.

The East Riding Archives and Local Studies Service has already received an award for the new service.

The National Council on Archives has awarded the project an Archive Pace Setter award, given to archives which provide access to their collections in innovative ways.

So far only one other service in the country has received the accolade.

The archive is due to be officially opened on Thursday evening by chairman of East Riding Council Councillor Christopher Matthews.

"I am so pleased to open this new facility which will be of interest to people from throughout the East Riding and further afield. It is not often that I have the chance to open something which is already award-winning, and people should be very proud that we have such a fantastic facility here to help with study and research for years to come."

Visits must be booked in advance at the Research Room in the Treasure House, in Champney Road, Beverley.