I have been working on my website for over four years now. It was started to provide a means of publishing a lifetime's research into Beeston in Nottinghamshire - where I was born and grew up and where many of my family roots can be found. I always knew it would take many years - my accumulated research is voluminous and getting it into acceptable shape takes time and everything needs checking using sources that have only recently become available
However, there is another problem - as it popularity grows, the more enquiries I receive. Great ! I welcome them and enjoy trying to help and I don't want to put unreasonable limits on this. But it does mean that formal additions to the web-site get put aside for a while.
Having given this situation some thought, I have decided to start this blog. I expect to use it to publish a journal of things about Beeston in the past that I am looking at currently and which may be of a wider interest or attract input and comment. Some of it - but by no means all - may eventually evolve into more formal pieces for the site but, either way, it will create a record of much that might otherwise be lost.
Feel free to contribute your comments to any post. At least for the time being, these will be moderated before they appear in the blog.
The lady in the middle, with the lighter coat and the white hat is Ruth Mary Thornton (née Leeson) who lived in Beeston after she married Albert Thornton, for a time a police constable there, but later an employee of Beeston Boiler. The photograph appears likely to date from the 1930s and seems to show a group of members of an organisation that has a uniform and colours - which can be seen held by the lady to the left of Ruth and the man at the rear on the right. The sign gives the location as "Bridge Road". (Click on the photograph to get a better view.)