Take a journey back in time and you'll be captivated for hours
Janet Carter is the link between Bognor Regis and Florence Nightingale.
She is the proud custodian of a letter from the world-famous nurse.
It is tucked modestly in one of the books which line the shelves of the archive at the University of Chichester's campus in the town.
The letter from the 'Lady with the Lamp' (pictured right) is addressed to Louisa Hubbard and her campaign to encourage women to become teachers.
Her success led to Bishop Otter College at Chichester, now part of the university, reopening as a training college for women.
It was a cause Ms Nightingale was eager to embrace.
Dated October 26, 1872, she writes: "I wish you God speed with all my heart and soul.
"To supply some of our school mistresses from poor gentlewomen with the view of creating among rustic young girls and town and village children a better family life by way of experience is one of the most useful pleasures I know."
Ms Hubbard also achieved backing from Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, whose Victorian health campaigning for women lives on in the name of a London hospital.
Details of Princess Charlotte's visits to Bognor are also detailed in yet another book under the care of university archivist and librarian Mrs Carter.
But it is not just the great and famous whose names spring out from the shelves of the archive tucked away in a basement on the Upper Bognor Road campus.
One of several yearbooks records the day-to-day life of the first 12 months of Bognor Regis Training College in 1946/47.
This was set up to counter the shortage of teachers caused by the immense loss of life during the second world war.
With 18 members of staff, and more than 200 mature students, its formation carried on an academic tradition among the historic buildings dating back a century.
The yearbook reveals names such as Roy Macklin (principal), May Jenkins (English tutor) and students such as Joan Comyn, Frank Cross, Olive Simons and Tony Lumpkin.
Sharing equal billing with them in some of the evocative black and white photographs are the ducks, geese, pigs, rabbits and fruit and vegetables which were nurtured in a mini-farm to make the college self-sufficient.
Local history also abounds in the archive through the Gerard Young Collection.
Its mass of pamphlets and booklets is as popular as the more august books the doyen of Bognor local historians amassed.
The annual Bognor Directory from 1902-37 provides detailed facts and figures about the town's growth during a pivotal.
The annual holiday guides are similarly useful for supplying information which was simply not recorded in newspapers of that period.
The Bognor Natural Science Society's records also have their merits as a source of news from the past.
But that is not all. Anyone with an ecclesiastical interest can feast their eyes on books dating back to the late 1600s.
They can hold the centuries in their hands thanks to the Chichester Theological College record books which are also under the care of Mrs Carter.
Then there's the Ted Walker Archive relating to the work of the Sussex poet as well as the John Fines History and Education Collection assembled by the historian and the Bishop Kemp Collection of theological texts.
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Weather for Chichester
Saturday 04 February 2012
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