THIS week we welcome hundreds of young readers who will be using copies of the Lancashire Evening Telegraph in school classrooms as part of Newspapers in Education, helping them to study the history of East Lancashire.

Today we invite them to become journalists and historians themselves.

In addition, special NIE pages in our newspaper this week will add more information to the history project and feature competitions and quizzes testing youngsters' knowledge of local events and places and offering great prizes of books and software.

Throughout this year we have been giving readers a glimpse into the history of our area through our series of supplements under the general title of "The Way We Were."

The latest of these, written by author and broadcaster Ron Freethy, encompasses the whole span of man's occupation of East Lancashire "From the Stone Age to the Space Age" and is available from newsagents, priced 30p. This supplement, along with a set of photocopiable worksheets produced by three teachers from schools in Burnley and Colne, a delivery of our newspaper into schools throughout this week, plus a copy of the book "Images of East Lancashire" by our own writer Eric Leaver make up our local history resource for schools. We would particularly like to thank teachers Leslie Riley and Alan Parker from Rosehill Junior School, Burnley and Les Hardy, Head of History at Park High School, Colne, for all their work in writing the excellent worksheets.

We are also indebted to the Teacher Placement Service at East Lancs Education Business Partnership, who have funded the placement, allowing teachers time to produce the material.

Get ready to take your place in history

AS we approach the end of the century and the dawn of a new millennium, many of us are taking stock of the way in which our town, country and civilisation will be viewed against the backdrop of world history.

What record of the way people thought and lived will be used by archeologists of the future? Among all the artifacts to be pored over and sifted through, our own century will surely leave a mass of information recorded in words and pictures by the world's media, including, of course, newspapers.

Our own newspaper archives go back well in the 19th century and, although much of it is too fragile to be made available to the public, it opens a fascinating and irreplaceable window into our past. Our Newspapers in Education project, now entering its eighth year, is inviting young people of 16 and under to send first hand reports of interesting memories collected from older members of their family or friends.

The reports could include larger events such as wartime activities, but could equally well be about school days, starting work, changing fashions or bringing up a family.

Ask the questions, jot down the answers correctly, then write your report, of any length, in an interesting style.

And don't forget to give people time to think and remember, and listen especially carefully to the answers to questions you did not ask.

Send your reports, neatly hand written or typed, and including your name, age, address and school, to NIE History Reports, Lancashire Evening Telegraph, High Street, Blackburn BB1 1HT, to arrive by Friday December 3. This is not a competition, but reports selected for publication will earn a small reward.

So, good reading, listening and writing, and get ready to take your place in history.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.