The Zhoosh! Brighton Blog
Domesday Reloaded-We Need To Make Sure LGBT is included.
Filtering down to the viewer on every channel and in every newspaper and into the eyes and ears of every interested person, currently cometh the trumpet blasts of the past – or rather not far off yesterday, since after all 1986 is so recent that most of the population can remember quite clearly the colourful clothes they were wearing, the joy of the angular IKEA furniture in the home and the style, colour, and petrol consumption of the proud car gently parked outside.
The Domesday Project II 1986 was an ambitious BBC project to record, maintain and make available the lifestyle of the British people for future generations to gawp at in wonder. It was launched in 1986 to much crowing of its historical importance and a huge spluttering of the importance of letting the Future Know How We Live Now! Schoolchildren and their parents were roped into furnish snapshots of their lives, local photographs were collected, area summaries, the population, employment, planning, roads and hospitals – cartloads beyond measure were sent trundling to the BBC for posterity to look at and marvel! ……modelled (for advertising purposes) on something great that happened in 1086.
Grown up people in 1986 had of course been taught history at school –so knew all about it. The Domesday Booke was complied in 1086: a survey of the realm of Englelande commissioned by William 1st (known as either the Conqueror or the Bastard depending on your sensitivity) in 1085 and completed in 1086. The Booke described 13,418 settlements in the English counties “So very thoroughly did William have the enquiry carried out, that there was not a single piece of land, not even an ox, cow or pig which escaped the notice of the survey.” muttered a chronicler of the time.
The original Domesday Book was of course written by hand on vellum and parchment – both ink and material have survived nearly 1000 years. What of Domesday II? Alas, so keen the BBC to utilise Modern technology, to be praised for foresight, determination and to launch a real scoop for the digital industry, chose to stash their information on something called a Laser-Disc. And within the blink of an embarrassing eye ran smack into Digital Obsolescence…. making the content on the discs seriously inaccessible. Whoops Auntie !
It has taken 20 years for the info on the dead discs to be decoded and eventually put online for all to see as DOMESDAY RELOADED. No cautionary comment needed here methinks, except to advise the BBC “make a hard copy dear, on vellum with ink that fades not over the years, and keep it in a gaseously inert atmosphere.” The latter not easy.
Granted LGBT etc. people are, in my experience, not too much interested in history except in the murder of King Edward II, but with DOMESDAY RELOADED now onscreen and interactive…let us listen to the call from the (beetroot faced) BBC for new information to update Domesday IIs stories, photos and places. Here is, glamorous and golden opportunity to set the record straight (sic)! Were you in B & H in 1986? Spot the changes in pubs and clubs. Prides Past – photos please? Fashion. Socialising. How you met that life long – or at least much cherished – partner all in your own words. Send comments about people and places ….let’s have a little bit of visible OurHistory on the new website….make a difference !
Interesting stuff. Wow 1986. I wonder what strange dialects our ancestors spoke in 1986.