Wirebird: The history journal of the Friends of St Helena is published annually.

A detailed index of subjects covered since the first edition in 1990 can be read HERE. Members will also find they can download and read full copies of every edition by logging into the site with their password and username and then clicking into a download icon. Please see our Membership page for details of how to join our Society.

Articles, notes, and correspondence, including any relevant illustrations, for publication in Wirebird are invited from anyone interested in St Helena and its dependencies, not only from members of the Friends. Contributions from Saints themselves are especially welcome. All contributions should be in keeping with the aims of the society, which are -

to provide information about the island of St Helena, including its history, culture, environment and current affairs; and also to provide practical support to the St Helenian community.

All enquiries should be emailed to the editor, Andrew Pearson - see instructions. Guidance notes for submissions are presented below.

Most back numbers from No 1, 1990 are available at £3 each (members only, excluding postage - please enquire for prices to non-members). Discounts will be given for a run or multiple copies. For all purchases, please contact Ian Mathieson.

Wirebird can be consulted at:
The British Library (shelfmark ZK.9.a.9030)
Cambridge University Library (classmark L646.c.69)
The University of Oxford, Rhodes House Library (call number D.R00025)

ISSN 1745-4387

Guidance Notes for submissions to Wirebird
Although it is fairly simple to change the various parameters of Word documents to fit the Wirebird template, the editor would find it helpful if the following guidelines were adhered to.

Size
Wirebird is printed in A5 format with 1cm margins

Footnotes/Endnotes
Wirebird is prepared using MS Publisher which has particular foibles, the most annoying being that it will not accept numbered endnotes or footnotes. These have to be entered manually. For simplicity of formatting, endnotes are preferred to footnotes.
It would be very helpful if submitters who are supplying script in Word use the following device:
If an endnote is required it should be shown for example as 1 (1). The ‘1’ in brackets means that when the script is pasted into Publisher and the uppercase 1 disappears, the brackets from the (1) are removed and converted it to superscript 1. This may sound complicated but this saves the editor time. All endnotes should be sent separately and numbered as needed.

Pictures/Photographs
Pictures and photographs cannot be pasted into Publisher directly with the printed article. Instead, pictures need to be inserted after pasting in the script. It would be helpful if a note is added in brackets eg [insert photo 1 here] and the pictures are sent on a separate sheet. It is not always possible to add pictures in an exact position as it depends on the size and has to be positioned as best suits the page. Where possible endnotes on photo/picture captions should be avoided as it can affect the numbering sequence if the photo/picture cannot be inserted in exactly the right place. As a general rule, photos need to be about 250kb in size to be publishable. Please be aware of copyright.

Fonts
Titles are in Baskerville Old Face 16pt bold, authors in Garamond 11pt bold. For the main body script, use Garamond 12 pt. New paragraphs are started with 0.5cm indents. Quotes up to five lines should be kept in the main body and shown thus “quote”. Quotes of more than 5 lines should be separated by a blank line before and after, indented by 0.5cm and set in Garamond 11pt. Endnotes/References are in Garamond 10pt. Picture captions are in Calibri 9pt bold. Ships names and printed works – newspapers etc should be italicised (Note the ‘HMS’ in Royal naval ships is not italicised.

General
When referring to the island it should be written St Helena and not St. Helena.
Numbers up to twenty should be written and over twenty should be numerical e.g. 21 unless part of a quote.
Dates should be written in the format e.g 20 May and not 20th May.

Archives
For British Library use: BL
For The National Archives, Kew (was the Public Records Office) use: TNA