I was contacted a while ago by Martin Astell, the sound archivist from the Essex Sound and Video Archive, Chelmsford, with a view to pro-cleaning their entire collection of vinyl, shellac and lacquer discs.

The archive, which is part of the Essex Record Office, holds historically important recordings from the Essex area, on record, tape and video.

Part of the archive’s remit is to make these valuable recordings available to the general public, via digitisation, and the aim of the cleaning project was to facilitate the best quality transcription.

The project took many hours to complete, spread over a number of weeks, but the end result is that people now have convenient access to a wealth of local recordings.