Great War Researcher Chris Clocks Up 1000 Life Stories

In late August 2020 volunteer Chris Stupples posted his thousandth biographical entry on the Shaftesbury Remembers the Great War website. The Project, inspired by Claire Ryley and Ann Symons of The Shaftesbury & District Historical Society, began with a modest Heritage Lottery Fund grant in 2015. Chris toured the War Memorials of Shaftesbury and the surrounding villages, recording the names and then researching the family histories and service records of those individuals. The resulting mini-biographies were posted on the Shaftesbury Remembers website, designed and built by Rob Frost of Orion IT Ltd. and launched officially in November 2017. There you can find not only hundreds of life stories but also photographs and detailed background information of many aspects of life in the locality at the time of the 1914-18 War. Printed copies of all the material on the website can be consulted in folders freely available in Room 8 at Gold Hill Museum.

Currently Chris is well into his second thousand, telling the stories of the men and women who came back from the War. He picked up this baton from the late Ken Baxter. At the time of his interview with Keri Jones of ThisisAlfred on 23 September 2020 Chris had reached number 1046. He is keen to hear from families whose relatives are not so far represented in Shaftesbury Remembers, and can be contacted through Gold Hill Museum.