Winston Churchill's personal papers digitised, available online

The man who famously stated that the British would "fight them on the beaches" in the event of a German invasion has had some of his less-often quoted words including his private letters (and his receipts for cigars) fully digitised and made available online in the Churchill archive. Winston Churchill's private musings, …

[bill 36]

Lady Astor

Sir, i believe you are drunk!

Yes Madam and you are ugly

But in the morning i shall be sober

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Lady Astor

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy_Astor,_Viscountess_Astor

Seems to have belonged to the appeasement lot at one point, been anti-catholic, not picked her words carefully on occasions and used the phrase "D-Day dodgers" but visually she seems to have been OK.

[Tom 7]

acts of gross immorality of the Oscar Wilde type

what going to public school?

But seriously this should be investigated further - perhaps it would shed some light on his cigar predilection for some otherwise unoccupied psychoanalyst from over the pond!

[Anonymous Coward]

Please correct me if I'm wrong but...

...didn't Churchill's grandson get a multi-million quid handout from the lottery for all these papers and now people are expected to shell out again for access?

[Packet]

Re: Please correct me if I'm wrong but...

to register for "my archive" is free?

[Robert Helpmann??]

Re: Please correct me if I'm wrong but...

I don't know about that, but pricing is different for access from outside the UK than from within. I haven't inquired as to the details, but it seems like a reasonable pricing scheme. I live in the US, so I am only guessing, but are there other publicly owned properties that charge for access in the UK?

"Prices are based on JISC bands in the UK and FTE numbers across the rest of the world."

[JEDIDIAH]

Re: Please correct me if I'm wrong but...

The whole lot should be on BT. Stuff's too important to do otherwise.

History should not be subject to egregious extended copyright terms.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Please correct me if I'm wrong but...

I believe these are the chaps making the most profit here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_Brown_(literary_agents)

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Please correct me if I'm wrong but...

Some of the original works like letters are not crown copyright , I had a look at the site and it's got a 300 page document listing the people they had to get permisson from.

However there are loads of insitutions and colleges hoarding stuff that could and should be put online cheaply but is held up in infighting and a fear of becoming redundant, leading to restricted access and a fear of digital.

[emmanuel goldstein]

"WINSTON CHURCHILL'S PERSONAL PAPERS"

i immediately thought "rizla".

glad it's friday

[Anonymous Coward]

Expensive, inflexible and a disgrace to the nation

Exactly the sort of digital boondoggle that has attracted dead tree publishers flipping "digital rights" to academic archives and made piles of £ for loathsome literary agencies and unscrupulous digital agencies selling "CMS's and services" to idiots who really should know better.

How much money was ploughed into scanning these bits of paper, how accurate are the text transcripts, how inflexible is the index, why do these papers held in trust for the nation cost a bloody fortune to access? This is truly less than useless and my tax has been used to fund this nonsense.

What why on earth did Doomsbury use that godawful CMS to pump out such 1999 looking shite?