SMUGGLING at the quay, the life of a fisherman family and memories of the war are being brought to life as part of a project to preserve history.

Every day life through the years in Harwich, old shops and even stories of the pilgrim journey to America are being recaptured for an ongoing catalogue of the past.

The oral history interviews and recordings are being collected for the Essex Record Office You Are Hear: Sound and a Sense of Place project, which aims to archive the memories for future generations.

Historian Brian Woods, who has donated some recordings to the scheme, said: "This is a way to keep these memories for future generations."

Last year Heritage Lottery Fund gave £53,700 to the Essex Sound and Video Archive to help fund the digitisation and cataloguing of sound recordings and videos from across the county held in the archive, focussing on collections of oral history interviews.