An online digital archive has been launched by the KM Group, containing thousands of pages from the South Eastern Gazette, a forerunner to many of its modern titles.

The family-owned firm is the first regional publisher to digitise volumes of its historic newspapers thanks to a Your Heritage grant and a dedicated group of volunteers.

It was launched at an entertaining ceremony hosted by the Historic Dockyard, Chatham, involving journalists, historians and children, including a group from Gordon Road Junior School in Strood.

Pupils were told how the paper had recorded stories from train disasters to public hangings.

You can access the archive via www.kentonline.co.uk