From photographs, leaflets and city guides to the first-ever Norwich Pride posters, Norfolk Heritage Centre is asking for donations to help create an archive of the county's LGBT+ history.

Eastern Daily Press: LGBTQ Group launch for Norfolk Day Photo: Brittany CreaseyLGBTQ Group launch for Norfolk Day Photo: Brittany Creasey (Image: Archant Prospect House Norwich 2019)

Norwich Pride has teamed up with the Norfolk Heritage Centre at the Norfolk and Norwich Millennium Library to create a permanent archive of local LGBT+ history.

Launching at a special event in the forum on Wednesday, the archive is looking for written memories and oral histories, badges, photographs, leaflets, flyers, posters, magazines and anything relating to Norfolk's queer history.

Rachel Ridealgh, a community librarian for local studies, who is helping to coordinate the project, said the team had been overwhelmed by the initial response to the archive.

She said: 'With the 30-year anniversary of Section 28 last year, we realised that it was so important to start collecting material about queer history in the county and preserve it proudly within Norfolk Library and Information Service.

Eastern Daily Press: LGBTQ Group launch for Norfolk Day Photo: Brittany CreaseyLGBTQ Group launch for Norfolk Day Photo: Brittany Creasey (Image: Archant Prospect House Norwich 2019)

'Prior to this we only had a small amount of information on LGBT issues in the county, really only focused on the AIDS crisis, and nothing celebrating LGBT histories locally.'

Adding that one of the main goals of the archive is to represent the growth of Norwich Pride over the last ten years, an aim which got off to a great start with the donation of the Pride organising committee's archive, Ms Ridealgh said: 'We are looking to grow this archive and are asking people to share anything representing their experiences as an LGBT person locally.'

Stevie Savage, Norwich Pride's historian, said: 'All of us are great collectors and we have collected things for many years, sometimes by accident and sometimes because they are special.

'I'm delighted that the library is going to be keeping this all safe for future generations and hopefully it will be added to.'

Michelle Savage, chairperson of Norwich Pride 2019, added: 'We are also really interested in the pre-history of pride and that time before the Internet leaflets were a life line to people then.

'We're interesting in history in all of its forms and we're really pleased that the library have taken this on,' she said.

For more information, or to make a donation to the archive email: rachel.ridealgh@norfolk.gov.uk or call 01603 774786.