Yes, we at Portsmouth Now And Then are indeed very proud of our city, of its history and of our heritage - it's taken hundreds of years and a lot of work and hardship by generations of men and women to make Portsmouth what it is today and to confirm its status as Britain's - and maybe the world's - best known naval port.

From a largely waterlogged and muddy island, on which were scattered a handful of tiny villages, it's taken an entire millenium to progress, first as a small township, then as a growing town and, finally, in 1926, to achieve city status.

Wars, pirates, fire, flooding and disease have all taken a hand at different times, but a progression of far-sighted and committed individuals down the centuries have always managed to push Portsmouth forward, exploiting its unique geographical position and the likewise unique advantages of the way in which nature has carved out one of the finest natural harbours in the world.

Portsmouth already attracts numerous visitors from all over Britain, as well as from countries all around the world, but it is our aim and intention to produce an "ultimate" website here, telling the story of Portsmouth down the years ourselves, but also putting together a comprehensive system of links to other sites, including those maintained by the various "attractions" which the city and surrounding area offers.

Anyone who has ever tried to research information on Portsmouth, both "now" and "then", will know that whilst there are plenty of websites out there, many are out-of-date, many have effectively "died" and others just rehash information from other sites, as an excuse for being able to sell advertising space within their pages.

Once we have finished - not that we think this site will ever be truly "finished" - we should have as near a perfect research and teaching resource as anyone could reasonably want, and a website that should also help bring even more visitors to us.

Portsmouth Now And Then is largely a "labour of love" and not intended to be a profit-making enterprise, but we do need to try to cover our overheads - including web hosting costs, assorted research costs and the wages for two part-time employees - one writer researcher and one researcher and additional web-designer and technician.

Your editor - that's me folks - is happy to work away unpaid, on a task that I was happy to undertake and which, I have to be honest, I thoroughly enjoy, as history has long been one of my great loves. I am also underwriting all the set-up costs myself and don't really expect to recoup those, but there are limits - and now we need a bit of outside help.

We could simply ask for donations, and a few people have intimated they would be willing to put their hands in their pockets, but this site also offers an excellent opportunity for local businesses and trades to advertise their goods and services at prices less than you might expect.

In my opinion, too many websites have ideas above their station - and certainly ideas above the real value of being seen in their pages - but I am a total realist and, as a local businessman, know as well as anyone the sort of strictures this current recession has been imposing upon us.

So, we're not asking for large sums of money and we're quite prepared to talk to potential advertisers on an individual basis; not only can we create links to your own websites, we can actually create a website for you, if you don't already have one - or perhaps even improve on what you already have on line.

The two of us who create all the pages you see in this site are "proper" designers, with experience in the printed media and in general "real world" marketing, before we turned our hands to this InterWobble stuff - we're designers first and "techies" second, the sort of combination that will actually give you what you need and what your customers want.

And to give you an idea of just how realistic we are, the little link icon/banner below here could cost you as little as £5 per month to have on several of our pages, including at least two of what I call the "critical" pages - eg index pages and section index pages, plus our guest book main page and my regular Blog Spot page.