A MUSEUM is appealing for help to create an archive of wartime memories which could be preserved for future generations.

Staff at the Beck Isle Museum of Rural Life, in Pickering, North Yorkshire, are gathering First World War material related to the town and its surrounding villages.

Photographs, postcards, documents, newspaper articles, letters and diaries are all needed to create a computer database which it is hoped will become one of the largest and most comprehensive in the region.

Local war memorial listings and details are also being collected to be stored on a museum computer.

Beck Isle is working with the National Inventory of War Memorials, a joint Imperial War Museum and English Heritage project, which is being compiled by Helmsley historian Roger Dowson.

Museum curator Gordon Clitheroe said: "The project is a first for Beck Isle Museum of Rural Life.

"There must be thousands of memories and a stack of memorabilia available in the Ryedale area which will all contribute to this archive, which will allow many people both from the district and from throughout the country to have access to information about their relatives or friends."

Anyone with items to donate or with details about war memorials in the area can contact the museum on (01751) 473653