A new service for bereaved families launches on the EDP 24 website from Monday. The facility, called In Memory 24, allows for personalised web-pages to be included as part of the traditional death notices offered in the printed paper.

A new service for bereaved families launches on the EDP24 website from Monday. The facility, called InMemory24, allows for personalised web-pages to be included as part of the traditional death notices offered in the printed paper.

These will be for the use of the families, to enable them to publish biographical details - including photographs - of their loved one, and enable them to receive electronic messages and photos from friends and relatives all over the world.

All that will be needed is an e-mail address from families when they book the notice in the normal way. Those who want to take up the service will then get an e-mail from the newspapers which will give them automatic and secure access to their websites where they can begin to build the profile of their loved one in words and pictures. They can then send the link out to anyone they know who has access to e-mail and the internet.

Ann Lown, general manager of online classifieds at Archant, publishers of the Eastern Daily Press, said: "This is a timely and valuable innovation. More and more people are using e-mail and the internet to stay in touch, because families are more widely dispersed than ever before. This will help family and friends stay in touch and provide mutual support through a particularly difficult time."

Mrs Lown is keen to stress that these pages are secure and safe from potential abuse. "As you would expect we have been extra careful about protecting sensitivities of our readers. Everyone who wishes to leave a message has to confirm their identity, and then their message is sent to the family member in charge of the site for approval.

"It can then be edited by the family before being posted on the site. Even then, we retain the right to remove anything that we consider inappropriate."

The idea of personalised web-pages alongside newspaper notices is commonplace in America. There, Legacy.com provides this service for local and national newspapers, including The Washington Post.

The EDP is the first in regional media in England to offer the facility; nationally, The Times will launch a similar offering in the next few months.