Nottscops - How it all started
Nottscop’s webmaster, Bob Richards
The idea for a website featuring old police photos and stories came about in November 2002. I was still a Nottscop myself and working at Sherwood Lodge when a Noticeboard message was posted on the force’s intranet by Pc Mark Naylor who was based at Sherwood Contact Point. Apparently a member of the public had handed Mark a few photographs of a Nottinghamshire police officer in various old styles of uniform and he was at a loss to know what to do with them. I was also aware at this time that my mate PaulWoodward, another ex-Nottscop, collected police photographs and memorobilia and so I rang Paul to see if he was interested in them. On discussing those photos and all the hundreds that Paul had stashed away at home I realised what a pity it was that no one would actually see them. That’s when the idea of a website came about. Like most people, I had very little experience or knowledge in the technicalities of building websites although I had published an amusing American-English Dictionary on the Internet using a instant website programme run by Lycos-Tripod – completely free, full of adverts and very slow in operation – but didn’t need any HTML programming knowledge. So, armed with Mark Naylor’s photos and a handful of pictures that Paul let me have, I embarked on my new website which I decided to call Nottscops. It went online in January 2003 and was based on another Lycos-Tripod do-it-yourself website kit; not very professional looking but free of charge! The website was actually quite popular albeit a bit sparse and I realised |
that I’d have to learn how to build websites properly and train myself in all the intricacies of writing website code.After reading the five hundred-plus pages of the Dreamweaver handbook I wrote the first HTML version of Nottscops and purchased a proper domain name. In August 2003 www.nottscops.com was born. The site quickly grew after it was picked up by all the site engines including Google. After a year Tripod-Lycos wanted me to pay them too much money to keep the dot com name for Nottscops so I changed my hosting company and the name of the site. Nottscops.co.uk then came about and is the present and, hopefully, the permanent home for Nottscops. Since then the site has grown and achieved fame, (but not fortune!), at a scale I’d never thought possible. The site gets over one thousand page-loads each day and I’m starting to loose control over the number of emails and contributions I get! I love doing the website even though at times it takes up too much of my free time. I’m glad I have such an understanding wife! Above all, Nottscops is free and so may it remain.
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