The First World War and Comedy.

.

The main objectives of this study were originally to investigate the development of the First World War and Comedy from the period 1914-18 to the Present Day. As I stated in my proposal, I wanted to cover a broad range of Twentieth Century media. The intention of this was to try to decipher the various ways in which comedy about the war was produced, received and understood. The project was to be presented as a website, as I feel very strongly that popular culture such as this should be interpreted not only in a purely academic manner, but ways which can be appreciated and understood by a broad spectrum of people. The study aimed to look at the changing ways in which the war is portrayed through comedy and to try and decipher how and why these have occurred.

Research was to include the comedy of the First World War running from 1914-2000. Although it still does this, certain elements have had to be excluded. I had already anticipated this as the project was already in danger of becoming unmanageable when the proposal was draw up. Throughout the study I have had to make certain decisions about the content which have often been linked to the means of production.

The original areas of study were the theory of comedy, trench newspapers, satirical home front magazines, songs, music hall, books after the war, plays, films, television programmes and computer games. The study aimed to be multidisciplinary by taking in history, cultural studies, media studies and psychology in its research. The finished document, the website, aimed to provide another discipline as it would require me to learn website programming in order to accomplish it. My key frame of reference was Samuel Hynes’ A War Imagined, which deals with the ways in which more canonical war literature is presented, and the ways in which a war "myth" was created. This myth distorts and influences many of the texts that deal with the war, presenting an exclusive picture which privileges the themes of horror, the Western Front, innocence lost and middle-class poets. My aim was to see if comedy followed similar patterns, and if this was so, to further investigate the ways in which this war myth affected representations of comedy in subsequent years. My provisional theory was that the original comedy would be more subversive as it was produced at the time, often by witnesses and participants in the war. However, I also anticipated that censorship and morality would contain these discourses and prevent them from an overtly aggressive or negative portrayal of the war. As the century progressed, I wished to discover how this changed and by what means. I was already aware that comedies such as Blackadder Goes Forth mentioned the deaths, poor conditions and ennui of the trenches in a far more overt way than earlier comedies, and that bridging these diverse representations were narratives such as Oh! What A Lovely War, and Duck Soup.

My first task in this area was to attain a wider understanding of how comedy functioned. This was a key factor in being able to decipher the main focus of the study, as the instinctive reaction to comedy about the First World War seemed to be that there was something taboo and unacceptable about it. This seemed a consistent theme throughout the century. To do this I examined key theories in psychology dealing with the function of humour. These were extremely empirical and I originally found them difficult to understand. I then read Arthur Koestlers The Act Of Creation (Pan, 1964), and whilst I did not agree with all of his theories, I found this more useful as a starting point for my research. The other book which I examined in this area was T.G.A. Nelsons The Theory of Comedy in Literature (Oxford Univ. Press, 1990), as it referred very specifically to the ways in which comedy is presented through plays and prose. The book identified key forms of comedy, amongst them the techniques and rationalisation behind tragedy and death. This was extremely useful when looking the comedy of the war, as obviously these two themes were both integral. These two books were the two core texts I used when trying to decipher representations of comedy. Most of the academic essays on the site have been strongly influenced by them, although the two which made most specific reference to theories of comedy are incorporated into the morale essay and the main introduction to the webpages.

I extended this theoretical basis by reading some of the studies of American soldiers during Vietnam and the Second World War. These pointed to the use of humour as a diffusing technique for stress, and a natural response of many people in an unfamiliar situation. Comedy and jokes are used to break down social barriers, and as attempts to rationalise the more stressful parts of the war. It is therefore not a taboo act to laugh at the war if it is an event that directly concerns the receiver. This concept went a long way to explaining how the various types of war comedy functioned – they became less acceptable and more sanitised by the further away a person was. So for example, the soldiers made jokes which were offensive, aggressive and very subversive, but they were deliberately couched in a language people further from the front would be unable to decipher. The potential offensiveness was therefore diffused. Comedy at home however, was much more sanctified and gentle, often highly political but making no specific remarks about casualties or the act of actually killing. By removing the audience from direct interface with the war, comedy became less harsh and more contained. This perception becomes extended as war becomes a mythologized historical event. As it becomes part of history rather than something which is still occurring, there is less need to diffuse the fear and stress it causes by resorting to humour.

For these reasons, attitudes to comedy and the Great War change dramatically as the century progresses. Cultural understanding of the war starts to alter and society begins to recognise that it is not always possible to "keep smiling". The war becomes not only a historical event (i.e. In the past), but also an event which is perceived as a great tragedy. It is therefore no longer acceptable to portray it as funny, and as a result of this I expected the types of comedy to shift and alter. With a firm grounding in theoretical understanding, I then turned to the primary evidence.

.

This became the bulk of my research almost immediately. The main reason for this was simply that it was the period in which most comedy was produced. Most of this research was of primary sources at the Imperial War Museum. This included trench magazines, Punch magazine and the songs of the war. I also examined several plays by soldiers put on as troop entertainment. I was undecided however, as to how to present the findings in this area. The trench magazines and Punch both leant themselves to a comparative essay, but the other aspects of the research seemed more disparate. I was also aware from my web surfing that there was no information on either trench journals or Punch. I therefore wanted to be able to demonstrate the sort of things I had been looking at so that anyone viewing the site would be able to compare my work with the primary sources. I therefore split the research into several sections. The first was the academic essay. The second was a critique of the cartoons in Punch. I relied heavily on my knowledge of graphic art for this, including a breakdown of the cartoons and how they achieved their objectives both in terms of text and illustration. I decided to present this in two ways on the site – as a gallery where the critique was not visible, and as critique alongside the cartoon. This was again a decision made which concerned the web layout – I was aware that any critique offered would be entirely personal. The prospective surfer may only wish to view the cartoons and not be told what to think. As an additional feature to this aspect, I attached several uncritiqued pictures at the end of the page. After choosing the pictures and writing up my findings, I gave the pictures to Dr Walter to scan onto disk over Christmas. The completed page will provisionally be erected by late January.

Definitely the most problematic area for comedy. Very little was produced as both the period after the war and that surrounding the Second World War meant that war became "No Joke" ("Crascredo", 1929). Until the late ‘20’s, the prevailing attitude was one of professed ignorance. Most countries tried to prevent the deviant image of the war as a tragedy, and relied heavily on comedy produced during the war. There were frequent tour of successful music hall acts, books reprinting jovial trench poetry and songs, and books full of light-hearted looks at the war. My research shows that the public were clearly aware of the casualties, the conditions the soldiers had endured and the lasting effects on its soldiers, but they preferred to ignore these. The cultural production of the time reflects this ideology up until the War Books Controversy. In 1928, Seigfried Sassoon published Memories of a Foxhunting Man, which gave a very different view of the war. Although this was also an erroneous depiction, the writing of Sassoon, Owen, Remarque and Graves began to dominate the perception of the war. From this point onwards, it became "Very bad form/ To mention the War." (Osbert Sitwell)

A notable exception to this is the Marx Brothers’ Duck Soup (1933). Duck Soup is considered to be one of the strongest war satires produced and is often regarded by critics as one of the Marx Brothers’ best films. I investigated this in some detail, as Groucho Marx always claimed that similarities to the First World War were entirely accidental. This is clearly untrue – the last section of the film contains a lengthy discourse on trench warfare, and the small republic of Freedonia quite clearly represents the American ideal of a small Eastern European state (possibly Serbia) in its imagery. Edits demanded by Paramount Pictures make the link even more explicit. However, countering this critique was that of the overall Marx Brothers style – a bastardisation of their unsequential stage plays. In other films, the Marx Brothers had already added elements of romance (A Day at the Races) or crime (Monkey Business) in order to entice audiences. Neither of these had been particularly successful, but Paramount still insisted that a basic plot held the film together. It is possible that the war scenes were added in an attempt to do this. Whatever the intention, Duck Soup remains one of the most problematic aspects of the study.

An inadvertent but extremely interesting side effect of studying the film was an increased awareness and appreciation of the Marx Brothers by my friends. Again it was fascinating to see their reaction to something they had assumed they would not find amusing. This response prompted the idea of an audience observation study and perhaps an ongoing online questionnaire for Blackadder Goes Forth. If my friends had been taken aback by the message and continued humour within Duck Soup, it would perhaps be productive to see how they responded to a comedy that they were already very familiar with, and how they would interpret the war comedy of a much more recent period. The site was intended for a layman to be able to understand as well as an academic, and as most of my friends had very little awareness of the war other than that portrayed in the Blackadder series, I decided to try and take this idea of interaction further in the later parts of the project.

The next thing I looked at in this era was literature. I decided to leave the more Canonical literature of the time, as although Goodbye to All That and The Good Soldier Schweik are both satires and have a valid contributions to make in creating the war myth, the study was already becoming unmanageable. Furthermore, this ground has been repeatedly covered. This choice was one of the first steps in determining what sorts of comedy I was going to include in order to give the site a definite focus. My preoccupation with accessibility and simplicity again influenced the types of narrative excluded, although I decided to include a very brief historical piece charting the more intellectual developments over this period.

The comedy produced over this period is so dramatically different that is was the original prompt for this study. Perhaps the Second World War was responsible for this – the earlier conflict starts to retreat into history and becomes a memory more than an event. The mythology of the war has coalesced fully, and survivors of the war have begun to die – thus preventing alternative readings. I was therefore keen to represent my findings in tandem with the way people responded to the war.

After the inertia before 1939, comedy starts to resurface with the staging of The Theatre Workshop’s Oh What A Lovely War! I very much wanted to see this -BHASVIC College were performing this over Christmas but I was unable to get tickets. I had thought to include a critique of contemporary staging of the play, but will be unable to do this and am now undecided in what ways to present this aspect. Possibly the play will be included alongside the essay about songs of the war. Both of the key resources for trench songs: Oh! What a Lovely War! and The Long Trail (Brophy and Partridge, 1965.) provide a very distorted version of the songs that were actually sung at the front. My own research reveals there was far more obscene and angry verse than either discourses suggest. Again this ties in with the mythologisation of the war and the ways in which contemporary readings present it as a more straight-forwards narrative.

Television and Film.

There was a great deal of material to investigate here, including Blackadder Goes Forth, Up The Front, The Fast Show and Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life. The crux of any debate has to be whether these are subversive or entirely contained by the war myth. My argument is that they are in fact more sanitised than any of the early comedy, as they no longer use an entirely realistic frame of reference. Blackadder Goes Forth in particular was strikingly similar to several of the plays I had read at the Imperial War Museum. There are therefore going to be two ways of presenting these to reflect the various conflicts. The first is my essay on the subject. The second is a transcript of watching Blackadder Goes Forth with my friends and a questionnaire on the site 9as mentioned above). This will hopefully give the sorts of response about the war that I have been predicting. Again to enhance the interactive aspects of the study, I feel it is important to encourage discussion about the themes and content of the site, especially in a context that a lot of people will be familiar with. The questionnaire part of the study involves learning a certain amount of programming; again this is new skill to be learned as part of the multidisciplinary aspect of the independent study criteria.

Possibly the most interesting way in which war comedy is used in a contemporary medium is in he teaching of children. The Imperial War Museum runs a series of shows in which humour is essential for making children understand the war. In tandem with this, the most subversive thing I have read so far is the "Horrible History" Book "The Frightful First World War" (1998, Scholastic). I want to include this as part of the site because it is such an extraordinary piece of writing, however I am not sure how to do this yet.

This includes my "Comics and First World War" essay, written as a piece of extended coursework in last years The Great War: Writing and Experience course. It is not eligible for assessment as it was a piece of coursework from last year, however I think it is an important facet of the project and have posted it on the site. The other part of this is an attempt to write a comic strip (illustrated by Jude Melling) to assess the findings of the site – can comedy about the war really be reproduced in a subversive and amusing way? This will be the last thing to be created and I hope will encapsulate some of the dominant conclusions of the study. I am also considering including a gallery of representations of the war through posters which include references to the war (for example, the ways in which the Kitchener recruitment poster is exploited) to show how the understanding of the war changes and the ways in which popular culture often manipulates an apparently innocuous primary source to more subversive ends, usually through humour. An example of this can be seen already in the "Comics and The First World War" essay, where the traditional image of Kitchener has been redrawn in the semblance of Judge Dredd, and the caption "Your Country Needs You!" changed to the ridiculous "This Comic is Illegal!".

I was going to investigate the trend for computer games to produce simulations and re-enactments of the Great War. These are virtually always couched as simulations or comedic parodies. I was also given a role-playing game about the First World War. However, I do not have time to pursue this, mainly due to the lack of primary resources and the time it will take to research and produce.

My initial plan was to present this study as a web page. This has been an extremely challenging and often complex aspect of the project.

The website is currently located at http://www.geocities.com/Neveahfs/warwelcome. The site has been updated on an almost daily basis since August. For this reason it is very difficult to demonstrate the various stages of development on the page, however I will attempt to explain some of the main strategies and techniques I have used on the page.

1. Setting up the site.

 

I was initially encouraged by the faculty to present the website on the university server. This involved a period in which I would need to obtain the permission of various members of staff, including the Dean of CCS, my supervisor and John Russell, who runs and maintains the departments’ websites. However, there were several problems with this. Firstly, there were several places where I could locate the site – on the CCS departments "projects" site, or on the main university server should the site get too large. When I first proposed the site, I had no idea how large it was going to be.

 

2. Size Matters.

 

To discover how big I wanted the site to be, I started to surf the web and look at other sites to see the sort of things I wanted. It quickly became apparent that if I was going to include any sound bites or video footage (as I intended), that I was going to need a larger site.

 

3. Back To The Front.

 

At this point I prepared the letters requesting permission and distributed them to the faculty. I went to see John Russell to confirm this application. He told me I wanted the "projects" site, and therefore did not need permission. I visited the Computer Centre for advice. They told me that I needed permission regardless and bombarded me with details of the other departments’ web projects. However they did not think the CCS projects site would be large enough for my needs. They also mentioned their own main server but continually stressed how difficult it would be to use this site. I went to see John Russell again. He said not to worry.

 

4. Server Unavailable

 

It was obvious that whatever site I ended up with, nobody seemed particularly helpful and I was going to have to work this out myself. The Computer Centre’s advice in particular had been baffling: giving the distinct impression that as a humanities student, they did not take me seriously. I decided to change tack. To get the correct help, I was going to have to try a different approach.

 

5. A Monstrosity of a Geocity.

 

I did some surfing and looked at the free sites on the web. At this point I did not have a computer and therefore chose an address which I could maintain entirely online from the university terminals. I picked the Yahoo! Site; Geocities. I had internet friends who had their own Geocities pages, that looked simple yet effective. The service also had two page construction programs which could be used online.

 

6. Hyper-Textuality.

 

The rest of the summer was spent creating basic pages for the site and teaching myself to program in HTML (Hyper Text Mark-up Language). The pages started very crudely, but continuous work produced a rapid improvement. HTML is very easy to understand, and I supplemented what I learned via the page construction sites with trips to Borders Books, to consult with the vast amount of programming books they sell.

 

7. Only Hume-an.

 

Two friends of mine were roped in at this point to troubleshoot the site – Tom Hume and Jay Gooby. Both of them provided advice and e-mail assistance without any direct interference. As web designers, they gave me advice on the sort of things I could create in the short time I had been programming, and provided addresses for me to collect applets and add-ons for the site (the postcards, the guest book and the forum were all suggested by them). Again this was an essential part of the project – to make it as interactive and dynamic as possible. In October, I purchased my own computer and they assisted me in installing and setting up the system.

 

 

8. Back to the Front II.

 

At this point I felt suitably able to approach the university again. John Russell had been monitering the progression of the site over the summer and had already advised me who to contact and the types of inclusions I needed in my formal proposal for the website to seem more viable to an external audience. Unfortunately the Computer Centre were as inaccessible as before. I consulted my undergraduate prospectus. It did not state that the site had to be hosted by the university and as I was losing time, I therefore decided to submit the site on the Geocities address.

9. Dream On.

The rest of the term was spent beginning to assemble the site in a more cohesive manner. At this point the study began to really come together – I could envisage the ways in which the research might be organised and presented in different ways on the site, and I now felt in a position to be able to do this. The possibilities of the web became much more apparent – at this time I also finished my proposal and the introduction to the site. Both helped to really crystallise the ideals and objectives of the site. For the time being I focussed on installing the applets to the site, cleaning up the index page, and producing some of the academic essays. In the evenings, I surfed the web and investigated the galleries and archives available on the First World War. During the day I edited the site offline with Dreamweaver, a web design program recommended by John Russell and Jay. This has been the pattern of my research since receiving the computer, with a greater emphasis on producing the bulkier and more academic essays over the Christmas vacation.

10. Feersum Engin

Unfortunately, the computer I bought was faulty, and completely packed up over the Christmas vacation. Although I did not lose any work, this has severely interfered with the production of the website over this period. I managed to borrow another terminal, but this does not have internet access. For this reason many of the documents I produced over the Christmas break have not been fully installed onto the site. I expect this to be a continuing problem until the machine is replaced.

This was one of the areas where I anticipated the most problems. Firstly, I assumed there were very few people who have expert knowledge of the comedy of WW1. Secondly, I was unsure of where to start and how to approach people.

I was completely and utterly wrong in both of these assumptions. Several people provided invaluable assistance: I was surprised how easy it was to engage people’s interests. With one exception (see multimedia), the people and institutions I approached were unfailingly enthusiastic and helpful towards my studies, often going out of their way to help. In terms of learning from this, I feel that the liaison aspect of the project has contributed both academically and on a personal level. As can be seen from the list, most people had a variety of different opinions and input, all of which brought new aspects to the study. For this reason, I have included it as a large aspect of this log.

Dr Daniel Hume.

Dr Hume provided information on the psychological aspects of comedy and its relationship with post-traumatic stress disorder. This was part of the study I was having problems understanding as all the documentation was couched in such empirical and often medical terms. Dr Hume provided reading suggestions and theoretical examples of how humour functions to diffuse stress, and also suggested the Arthur Koestler book for a more philosophical angle. I incorporated his comments into the "Morale" and "Troop Entertainment" essays. Dr Hume provided invaluable proofreading and web site suggestions. His lack of knowledge about the First World War was important in that he was able to provide suggestions for making both the site and the essays more understandable from a layman point of view.

The IWM seemed initially rather baffled by my choice of subject, the first few visits being not particularly constructive. The museum’s librarians were at first slow to find pertinent resources. However, they let me use their database which proved extremely fruitful. The Reading Room obviously see a huge amount of researchers every year, and it was noticeable that they became far more helpful after several visits. As my primary centre for research after the university, it was extremely important to both engage their interest and retain it. After this was accomplished, they became very accommodating, quickly supplying the type of articles and documents I might be interested in and giving important suggestions or alternative references. The IWM periodically runs lectures on the Great War, several of which I attended. The museum also run children’s activities over the holidays, and these were also useful – humour was used as a key tool to engage interest and teach children about the war. This aspect of the museums programme may be included in the section about the "Horrible History" books.

Glenn is the military bookseller for Maggs Brothers in London. As well as providing references and reading suggestions, he put me in touch with several people who know about trench magazines and music hall performances during the war. Once again, an alternative perspective on the site was useful, as Glenn has extremely strong views on the representation of the war as comedy.

Dr Walter is my supervisor for the study, and an expert on the mythmaking processes of the war. Although he was absent from university over the summer, he more than made up for this on his return with frequent meetings and suggestions. Dr Walter was also instrumental in helping me to coalesce ideas about the study – in this case to make sure they stayed pertinent to the more academic aspects.

Jon Watson.

An MA student in HUMS, Jon gave me several key web addresses for search engines and resources. He also allowed me to use his passwords when I needed to order documents from these online facilities which would otherwise have been closed to me. Additionally, his work as a history supply teacher gave me useful information on the ways in which the war is taught to younger children. In a similar way to the tours at the IWM, Jon’s teaching comprised a great deal oh humour in order to keep the attention of his pupils. This is balanced with a more standard version of the war myth. Jon’s observations about his pupils – their levels of enthusiasm, the type of work they did as a result, and the ways they responded to the war were crucial as background material for the "Horrible Histories" essay.

Tom Hume/Jay Gooby.

Tom and Jay both helped to install the computer and troubleshoot the website as mentioned in the multimedia section. They tolerated a great deal of confused e-mails about web design but were unfailingly helpful and prompt in their replies. Tom also came to my rescue when my motherboard failed over the Christmas holidays by loaning me his own spare terminal indefinitely so that I could continue my work. Without his help the project would probably have had to be severely curtailed.

Chris maintains the newsgroup "Disciples Of the Blade". He again gave online support and early hours encouragement. Chris was one of the main sources of information on the "Comics and World War One" essay. Again, the importance of a less academic viewpoint, especially that of a web designer, was crucial to the development of the site. Chris’s own web pages gave me ideas of how to extend and present my own in a viable and interesting way.

As a fellow student, Sue was willing to discuss and evaluate my project. Although the site places heavy emphasis on accessibility and easy of understanding, it was impossible to do this without proper research and an academic background. Sue’s expertise was invaluable in this situation. As a fellow student she suggested areas I may have missed or aspects to discard. As an independent study student, I had no seminars and therefore often found that I needed a frame of reference from other students which I was not achieving alone. Discussions with Sue and other members of the faculty made this easier to overcome.

Along with Dan, Tom, Jay and Jude, these people all assisted in audience response tests to Blackadder Goes Forth. They were the target audience for the site as their understanding of the war was extremely limited. All of them at some point have proofread the site or the essays.

Jude has agreed to illustrate the site. His knowledge of cartoon technique has also helped make the appearance of the website more aesthetically pleasing, another important aspect of making it more easy to navigate and understand. As a graduate, he was also able to identify subjects or areas that I might want to study. Jude provides a good balance between a laymans understanding of the war, and the opinions of someone who has lived with me for over a year and is therefore aware of the key discourses in my study.

The Independent Study has changed dramatically over the past few months. This concerns not only the issues that I hoped to explore, but the ways in which the research has been presented.

Thematically, the study has both shrunk and expanded. There are far less strictly academic pieces than I expected, and far greater inclusion of aspects such as galleries, soundbites and film biographies – a far less critical and more simplistic approach to the humour of the war. However, this is integral to the study. Comedy is enjoyed by all classes, and the comedy of the war in particular is often aimed at a broad spread of the population rather than being restricted to certain groups. The presentation of the site aims to reflect this by providing examples which can be appreciated by everyone. In creating the various pages however, I have become increasingly aware of how much research is required to produce something so apparently simple. The importance of accuracy and clarity on the website needs a very specific understanding of the subject in order to produce something of value.

I originally envisaged a far more academic site, and although a substantial amount of the information available on my geocities site is textual, I have been able to present a far wider spread of media than I anticipated. The site has become an extremely interesting way of presenting this study. Many of the decisions I have made about my research have been acutely affected by the nature of the site in a way I did not anticipate. As the focus of the study has shifted towards accessibility and easy understanding, many of the essays on the site provide repetition or explanation that I would not include in a more academically biased paper. However, I have tried to use the essays cumulatively; all of them detailing and expanding on the themes of comedy, subversion, class consciousness and the changing perspective of the war through combatants, civilians and the passage of time. I have depended heavily on the advice of friends who know very little about the war to gauge the success of my writing, and this has proved utterly invaluable.

There has been considerable development in the ways that comedy functions first as a psychological technique and secondly as a tool of subversion. The comedy produced during the war shows very particular trends which indicate how it was used by the troops. There are distinct differences in the way the war was portrayed at home and by the troops, but these are very different from the ones that historians traditionally suggest. Comedy was used to coalesce social groups in the trenches, to encourage people to bond together, and to give them a mechanism not only to defend themselves from fear, but also to prevent censure by their own people. The comedy of the war shows a marked trend to create and maintain a very particular myth, one which I did not expect to find. The war myth that emerges over the years following the war owes a very great deal to its inception in the trenches through magazines, concert parties and other popular entertainment. These were reconstructed by the troops in a particular way that shielded both themselves and the home front. However, these distortions were distinct enough for the soldiers to feel disillusioned by the comedy at home. Music hall comedy gives a typical example of this. Considerable evidence shows that it was in great demand at the front, but it became increasingly more obscene as the war progressed. On returning home, soldiers were disgusted and offended by the "traditional" sanctified versions of music hall. However the civilians, who had been told repeatedly how much the soldiers appreciated this form of entertainment, were surprised and baffled by this response.

This type of split has been consistent throughout the wartime comedy, and feeds in to the later mythologisation of the war. At the present state of my research, I am trying to see how this develops as the types of comedy change throughout the century.

• HTML programming.
• Web page design and layout.
• Use of Web construction programs Dreamweaver, Netscape Composer, Geobuilder (Geocities exclusive program).
• Installation of independent programmes to the site (the postcards, chat forums and guestbook).
• Internet Search Techniques.
• Psychological Techniques (application of psychology to humour and comedy)
• Library Skills
• Liaison with other academics and professionals.
• Time management.

Despite my sometimes manic enthusiasm for this project, I think it is very important not to let the project get any larger. There is definitely enough work outlined here to make a well-rounded product and I consider it prudent to leave any major research that may need to be done. After finishing the bulk of the writing over the next few weeks, I aim to concentrate on the study’s clarity and accessibility. The only other topic I am keen to develop more fully is the discourse of Childrens’ education and history texts, however, I will try to centre this around what I have already read. As with all of the subjects I have studied, this is a project in itself, and should be treated with caution.

The website is progressing well, but there are still many things to add to make it more easy to navigate. The various pages do not connect particularly well; they are either too lengthy or do not have pertinent links yet. Additionally, there is a lot of art still to be scanned and sized before it can be inserted into the page. Again this may have to be cropped in some capacity, as pictures take up a great deal of memory. Although the site is nowhere near it’s capacity, excess pictures on a screen make loading times much longer. The site has not yet been "signposted", so it has very few visitors. To address this problem I need to investigate ways of advertising the site or making it appear on the larger search engines.