When I first came to OSM, jeez, perhaps THREE whole weeks ago, Southport, my hometown, was pretty much an empty void on OSM. I made the obvious joke on a number of occasions.

Because OSM is a pretty much entirely awesome, it looks like someone (called Dave Edwards) has been adding bits since then (or he added them before but I ignored them because they weren't in my bit of Southport) and I got itching to start helping out over there too. But I've been too busy over here to make the pilgrimage back to the 'port to collect GPS traces - so I thought I'd have a look at the NPE maps instead.

Around my mum and dad's house (my home for 18 years) in the east of Birkdale, things haven't changed much in the last 50 years (obvious joke number 2) so it was easy to get my bearings. I got up tracing pretty quickly and could remember all the local road names off the top of my head, and could add in other things like mini-roundabouts and Post Offices etc too. I had to double-check a couple of pub names with my mum but aside from that, it was easy going.

After I mapped the immediate area around them, I started mapping in other bits I know like the back of my hand - around friends' houses, schools and pubs I went to etc. It's nowhere near comprehensive yet but I've got a lot of the bigger roads around Birkdale in now.

I'll double-check all the positioning when I go over with a GPS unit in a few weeks but at least Southport is looking a bit less empty now - and it's a start. I've also marked everything as source=npe so if some GPSer comes along before I get to check it, then they'll know to trust their positioning rather than mine.