I very much hope Mr Davis (Echo, 16 Feb) has put all his brochures, programmes etc. of Eastleigh's past in a box ready to take to the local museum when it opens again, or if he intends to enjoy them himself arranged for everything to go there or to the county archives after his death.

I was an Eastleigh Borough councillor for West End South 1980-87 and West End North 1990-2003.

When I decided not to stand for West End again back in 2003 I boxed up all my twenty years' accumulation of leaflets and correspondence and took it all to the county Record Office.

I remember the look of delight on the archivist's face! 'We never get this sort of thing', she said. 'No one ever thinks it's important enough.'

But the truth is that to preserve local history people with extensive collections should ensure that it all eventually ends up in the county archives for future generations and future historians to pore over.

Amongst my own donation was every letter I'd ever received from a West End resident, with my reply stapled to it.

I said to the archivist, 'You'll find that 95% of it is about four topics: street lamps, potholes, overhanging hedges and dog mess and only 5% is about politics. You can puzzle for yourself on what sort of person wants to devote their spare time to dealing with that for twenty years!'

To save anyone's blushes, as a precaution I embargoed it for 30 years.

Martin Kyrle

Chandler's Ford.