It's Census Day
Tonight's the official night to record who's present in your household for this year's census return. Don't be put off by the form, most of you won't have to fill out every page as it's designed to cover households with up to 6 people living there.
As you can see, this year you can do it online, or you can pop your return in the post. Online Help is available or you can call 0300 02101 101 (or 18001 0300 0201 160 if you need the Text Relay service). Do please complete yours and return within the next 10 days, else someone like me * will be calling round to see if we can help.
The census has been taken every decade since 1801, apart from 1941 when we were a little preoccupied with WWII. This might be the last one, so it's history in the making perhaps?
* = I've taken the Collector role for an area around here, which means next month I'll be following up on questionnaires which haven't been returned.
since i'm mixed descent of various european locales i switch up my declared 'ethnic background' every census.
ReplyDeleteWe had a big kerfuffle last summer when the ruling Neocons abolished the longform census. In a country this huge and sprawling, the census provides a lot of useful data. We have a census this year but now we also have a federal election going on. I may just hide in the garden til it's all past.
ReplyDeleteYou can call anyway, just remember to bring your trowel!
ReplyDeleteI'll pop the kettle on
Dear Vp, thanks for this useful reminder.Cats currently on 2 week vacation in country. I must look through to see whether I need to record them or not. I f I could find where I hid the doc anyway. I think there is constantly a little bit of denial about me and forms!
ReplyDeleteBest
R
Let me please commend you on your census collector position, and may I say, how important I feel a census is. My other fun hobby (besides gardening) is genealogy and without the British Census (and Ancestry)I would never have been able to find "my family" abroad. People move, continents away sometimes..the chain of verbal family history sometimes broken and lost. Thanks for the job you are doing; it is so valuable..just wanted to let you know......now hustle over to Mark's with that trowel)))
ReplyDeletePetoskystone - I'd be tempted to do that too if it applied to me ;) BTW thanks for your comment on my Blossom vidwo on YouTube - I'll be posting it on here too very soon...
ReplyDeleteJodi - one of my friends uses our census data weekly if not more regularly as part of her role in the NHS. She finds it a vital source.
Mark - I'm not doing your bit of Chippenham, but I'll bring my trowel anyway!
Robert - aha, expect a call from your local friendly Collector imminently ;)
Gardeningbren - thanks. I'm anticipating quite a bit of flak when I go round. I've been using the 1911 Census just to see what my great grandparents were up to. It's been interesting to match their address with how the same place looks today using Googlemaps