One Day for Life 1987

Approximately 100,000 photographs, almost all in colour and most measuring 6 by 4 inches, and the negatives of the 4000 short-listed photographs.

Search '88 was an organisation raising funds for cancer research and palliative care. It organised a photographic competition in which contestants sent, with an entry fee of 1, a photograph taken on 14 August 1987 to 'capture' the essence of Britain in the pattern of their lives'. Some 100,000 photographs were received; 4000 were shortlisted and of those 350 were published in One Day for Life: photographs by the people of Britain, taken on a single day (London: Bantam Press, 1987).

Since deposit, the short-listed prints have been arranged in 22 major subject categories. The first nine of 38 boxes of other photographs have been classified by a different subject classification. The remaining boxes have not been sorted.

The collection is open to all bona fide researchers, by appointment only, telephone or email a week in advance of your intended visit. Researchers must abide by the conditions protecting the collection.

Given in 1990 by Search '88, through Hambros Bank, to the Mass-Observation Archive Trust which deposited the collection with the University of Sussex.

Prepared by John Farrant, September 2002.

A brief note for researchers is available in the Library. There is no index to the photographs.

Reproduction conditions vary. Please consult the Head of Special Collections.

One Day for Life: photographs by the people of Britain, taken on a single day, with a foreword by HRH the Duchess of York (London: Bantam Press, 1987)