Men of Worth Project - The 'Man a week' articles

[Andy Wade]

Hi Everyone,

Just thought I'd post some details of the articles we have been running in our local newspaper the Keighley News.

We're doing a short article on a man each week (it's a weekly paper) and started in January 2014. They have promised to run these up to August 2014 at least and maybe longer, depending on how much interest they generate.

We've been getting at least one extra new contact each week and I'm busily going to see people who have old photographs and medals etc of their relatives, some of whom we didn't even have listed. So it's been very successful so far. Not every one of the articles ends up online on the newspaper's website, but at least half of them do.

Here's the latest man, Private Arthur Hastings of the West Riding Regiment, who died on 1st September 1914 on the operating table having been wounded in (just) four places during the Battle of Mons:

Private Arthur Hastings

Thought I'd add some of the earlier articles:

Private William Denby

Captain Alan Clough

Private Samuel (Harry) Lund

Private Herbert Wood and Private Harry Wood

[ralphjd]

This is brilliant Andy, you have given me an idea for the Rochdale Observer who are asking for bits of stories. Ralph.

[Andy Wade]

Hi Ralph, long time no speak, hope you're well?

One of the things that came up in our first meeting with the Editor last year, was that I remarked they'd probably want good stories for the articles because they were journalists. He corrected me and said he wasn't so much a journalist as 'someone who is in the business of selling newspapers'. He also said that from their research, people buying the newspapers often went straight to local history articles because they could identify with them and it's human nature to try to identify with things that interest you. As long as these people bought the newspaper, this meant that the article had done its job.

He also said that they were really happy to run these types of articles about local men/women because they were of great local interest and were also topical given the advent of the Centenary, but he also said that he expected interest in them might wane shortly after the start of the Centenary because that's usually how these things trended. Made me rethink the way I viewed the newspaper, and not in a bad way either. The newspaper staff have been very supportive (I supply the raw information and a good picture and they write the story - no picture, no story) and our Project gets lots of support and what is effectively free advertising for any of the events we might be involved in during the Centenary. Win-win for us and they get some free copy that they know will be read by people who buy their newspaper. The amount of new contacts we are receiving in response to these articles shows that it's working well ...so far.

As an example, the 'Grand Depart' of the Tour de France is coming to Keighley soon, the newspaper runs something connected with this every week but they have said that as soon as the race had gone through, they would probably run stories for a couple more weeks but after that it would be dropped like a stone as it's 'old news' and people would get fed up with it once it had happened. Quite a cynical thought really, but then they're 'in the business of selling newspapers'.

[ralphjd]

Andy. Many thanks for that, I am ok, but Irene is a bit not so ok, she had her right kidney removed due to it having a growth inside, so far so good but Christies have now found two "bits" on her other kidney that need to be removed, awaiting a phone call from them, got everything crossed at the moment, she is chirpy enough and everyone is very supportive. Ralph.

[Andy Wade]

Here's our latest offering. A couple of errors but a good story nonetheless:

http://www.keighleynews.co.uk/news/11108529.Men_of_Worth___Saving_Private__Ryan_Plot_was_real_life_for_Keighley_men/

...and it has been taken up by the online Daily Mail. Not sure I like their errors because one is deliberate and they think we had a Queen on the throne during WW1 but happy for the exposure for the work of the Men of Worth Project:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2590975/Real-Saving-Private-Ryan-Soldier-brought-home-WWI-frontline-sister-wrote-army-begging-sent-FOUR-brothers-killed.html

[Andy Wade]

...and now we're in The Times, no less.

As Alan Partridge would say: "Back of the net!"