Project to share wartime memories

Exhibitions featuring tales of life in wartime Scotland are to be staged across the country, it has been announced.

First-hand accounts, diary entries, newspaper clippings and photographs will all be brought together through a £590,000 lottery-funded project.

The idea is to personalise snapshots of life during World War II for future generations.

The exhibitions will be themed to reflect the experiences of the time.

Among those set to feature are the accounts of women working in the shipyards, letters from home and the infamous Clydebank blitz, which killed more than 500 people.

"People are now acutely aware of the importance and urgency to continue to gather this information now while the opportunity remains"
Joanne Orr
Museum Galleries Scotland

Museums Galleries Scotland decided to run the scheme following a successful project commemorating the 60th anniversary of the war.

Exhibitions will be held at 10 locations, from the Museum nan Eilean on Lewis to the Hunterian Museum in Glasgow.

Chief executive Joanne Orr said: "Personal accounts and reminiscences like these hold much fascination for young people and they can bring a greater understanding of what life was like for their grandparents' generation."

She said: "People are now acutely aware of the importance and urgency to continue to gather this information now while the opportunity remains."

'Wider community'

The project, called Their Past Your Future, will involve Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders who will discuss their experiences of conflict with young Duke of Edinburgh Award participants.

The Highlanders have been involved in almost every post-war conflict including Korea, Aden and Northern Ireland.

Members of the Tullochan Trust, which provides activities for disadvantages youngsters, will also learn from the soldiers.

Culture Minister Linda Fabiani said: "Scotland's older people have a mine of information, stories and experience to impart and it's therefore heartening to know that some of it is being captured through projects such as this for the benefit and education of younger citizens and the wider community."

Exhibitions will be held at Glasgow, Stirling, South Uist, Isle of Lewis, Renfrewshire, Orkney, Perth, Aberdeen, West Dunbartonshire and West Lothian.

RELATED INTERNET LINKS
Museum Galleries Scotland
Museum nan Eilean
Hunterian
Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders
Awards for all
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