h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Thanks for this.

I've thought of writing a poem about the band on the Titanic, and wondered where to look for useful information. Mind you, I expect everyone will be writing poems about the Titanic.

For anyone living within reach of Brighton, it might be worth knowing about the Mass Observation Archive - www.massobs.org.uk. The records of this are held at the University of Sussex.

The Mass Observation Archive was started in 1937, when a team of observers and a panel of volunteer writers was recruited to study the lives of ordinary people in Britain. This work continued until the 1950s - which means that there is a wealth of information about what it was like to live through the war.

The idea of a national panel was revived in 1981, as the Mass Obbservation Panel. New correspondents were recruited, and they were given topics to comment on.

Hey, that's great to know about, MVP. Thanks for that.

Oral history projects are so important. There are number of these in the US. And of course, the WPA (=Works Projects Administration), a New Deal project in the 1930s, collected a lot of valuable oral history.

There is a fair amount of information on the band. Here are some pictures of Wallace Hartley and the others:

http://www.titanic-titanic.com/titanic_band.shtml

Here's a blog with a list of songs from the White Star Line songbook:

http://titanicpiano.blogspot.com/2012/01/what-was-listed-in-white-star-line.html

If you search for 'White Star Line Songbook' on Youtube, you'll find many of the songs for listening, such as this 'White Star March':

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6-nRNP17II

And yeah, everybody will be writing poems about Titanic. Even I did it.

Thanks for that, Dmitri.

I'll go and look at your poem.