In the early stages, it would probably be fair to say that planning was not too much in our thinking! However, once we had decided we wanted to produce a book from our material, planning was necessary.

Stage 1 was to decide what sort of book we wanted to produce. We looked a few local history books to see if we liked the style, format and feel of the book. We decided we liked the look of ‘Tilley – a secret history’.

Stage 2 was to investigate how much it would cost to put together something like this. We approached several printers and it soon became evident that we would need financial backing.

Stage 3 was to investigate who would be prepared to give financial assistance with such a project and discovered Local Heritage Initiative. Reading through their literature it soon became evident that we needed to ask a lot more questions about our project before proceeding – such as what would we do with the mass of material, how would we deal with photographic material, what would we do with recordings and finally what would we do about making our scribblings comprehensible to a printer?

Stage 4 was to form a committee to oversee the project and make decisions about the project as a whole. If we were to apply for a grant from LHI, we would need the whole project properly costed out and our requirements to see it through assessed. Fortunately the LHI application form helped to focus our ideas but we needed to do quite a lot of research to find out what we needed to buy to get the job done, especially on the equipment side. E.g. it was not enough to get a digital camera to take photographs, you needed to have one that could produce photos of the right quality and type for the printer to incorporate within the book. We wanted to store all the material from the project on disc, so we needed a computer with a CD (700Mb) or better still, a DVD (5Gb) burner.

Stage 5 was actually applying for the grant and getting it.

Stage 6 was getting the equipment we had planned.

Stage 7 is to plan the chapter headings and decide on what material to include – this is taking place now.

Stage 8 is to write the chapters, which is being started now.

Stage 9 is to collate the book, which will be undertaken as the chapters are being written but will be undertaken in earnest early next summer.

Stage 10 is to publish the book in October 2005.