One Man in England Saves 5000 WW1 Photos from Being Destroyed

Screen Dump from BBC News Sussex website

This is a fascinating story about an ordinary man in England who took it on himself to save and preserve WW1 photos, cards, letters and other objects from the dump. 

Bob Smethurst worked at collecting garbage for decades. In the early days there were garbage pails that had to be dumped into the trucks. As  these pails were dumped, papers and photos were easily spotted. Not wanting some of the lovely photos of soldiers and WW1 postcards he saw to be lost forever, Smethurst began saving them. Little did he know that he would end up with over 5000 photographs and letters, some of them very rare.

Mr. Smethurst defines himself as a custodian of these documents and is making plans on what should happen to the collection. 

This is a fascinating story and how I would love to visit Mr. Smethurst and look through is amazing collection.

For more details and photos see Revealed: Extraordinary collection of 5,000 WWI photographs salvaged from RUBBISH DUMPS by a former dustman and Sussex dustman saved rare WW1 photographs