Residents across Cornwall are being asked to search their homes and attics for old telegrams to be used in a new exhibition at the Porthcurno Telegraph Museum.
People who uncover the paper messages are being asked to take them to Redruth's Cornish Studies Library, on Alma Place, next Thursday, (SEP 26) between 11am and 4pm, where they can be scanned to appear in a new exhibition next summer.
A second event is scheduled at Falmouth Library on October 24.
Porthcurno became a hub of global communications in 1870 when an undersea telegraph cable was laid linking it to India.
Messages that previously took weeks or even months to send could now be sent in minutes. Porthcurno went on to become the biggest and busiest telegraph cable station in the world.
Now, the gold award-winning museum is on a mission to uncover and record historic telegrams.
Rachel Webster, the museum's communications officer, said: "Telegrams often tell us about important local, national or international events, but from the personal perspective of those sending and receiving the message. Because telegrams often carried important news, they were often kept and even passed down through generations.
"We are asking people to dig them out, bring them along to our telegram collecting event to be scanned, and to tell us the stories behind their telegrams."
For more information, see the museum's website: www.porthcurno.org.uk or call 01736 811918
