Hidden Highland Histories
Issued by: Absolute PR
Hidden Highland Histories WW2 exhibition opens at Inverness Museum and Art Gallery on Saturday, 20 February 2010. Designed to illustrate the important role played by the Highlands in defending the country from attack and invasion, The Highland Council exhibition is packed full of interesting exhibits and reminiscences from highlanders who fought in the war or were children at the time.
This exhibition is part of a wider local history project by the same name, which in turn is part of a larger nationwide initiative entitled Their Past Your Future Scotland (TPYF Scotland). The project has recorded and documented the testimony of those who witnessed the war in the Highlands, with the material being edited into a series of online exhibitions, which will be uploaded onto a new TPYF website launching in spring 2010.
Hidden Highland Histories WW2 exhibition has several varied and fascinating themes from evacuation, Seaforth Highlanders in training and prisoner of war camps to secrecy, home life and crofting. It is brought to life with photography, documents, interviews with people who remember the war and items from the period including gas masks, POW tags, and egg boxes, which crofters in Wester Ross used to send eggs to relatives in the cities who didn’t have access to fresh eggs.
People – both veterans and civilians - are featured in a film which features 14 interviews carried out by school pupils from Dornoch and Helmsdale Primary Schools and Gairloch High School. They include: William Shand who was born in 1925. At the age of 18 he signed up at the Inverness recruitment office for the Royal Navy. He served as a wireless operator on the HMS Franklin from 1944 to 1945, a minesweeper which surveyed the harbours of North West Europe after the Normandy landings.
Neil Wilson was born in Fortrose, Ross and Cromarty, in 1920. He joined as a Territorial solider in the Seaforth Highlanders in 1938, much to the horror of his parents. On the 1st September 1939, Neil was called up to fight and travelled with the Seaforth Highlanders to France as part of the 51st Highland Division. After a brief engagement with the enemy, British troops were forced to retreat and the majority were evacuated at Dunkirk, France. The 51st Highland Division were cut off from the rest of the British Expeditionary Force, however, and were forced to surrender at St Valery, France. He spent his remaining war years as a prisoner in Germany and Poland, where he worked as a labourer in a cement factory, a sugar factory, and eventually a coal mine.
Marion Fleming was born in 1931 and grew up in Inver, Ross and Cromarty. Marion was evacuated along with all the other inhabitants of Inver in 1944 as the armed forces required the area in order to practice for the D-Day landings. Marion and her family were evacuated to her grandmother’s house in Tain for the remainder of the war.
The exhibition will also feature four animated films made by primary school pupils from Ardersier, Central Primary School, Inverness, Knockbreck Primary, Tain and Strathpeffer Primary School in response to the stories which they had heard.
Provost of Inverness Jimmy Gray said: “It is important that we capture the experiences of those who lived through the traumatic times of the Second World War for generations to come. I would like to thank Lorna Cruickshank, our Independent Museums Support Officer and Andrew Salmond, Their Past Your Future Scotland Project Manager for Museums Galleries Scotland for all their hard work in creating this exhibition for the Highlands.”
Andrew Salmond, Their Past Your Future Scotland Project Manager for Museums Galleries Scotland, said: “The launch of the exhibition follows a great deal of fantastic work by Highland Council and project staff. Hopefully, audiences will be fascinated by the many stories of wartime experiences provided by local veterans.”
Their Past Your Future Scotland Phase 2, which is led by Museums Galleries Scotland and sponsored by The Big Lottery, brings young people and older generations in the local community together to capture oral histories that focus on the Second World War and all subsequent conflicts.
Their Past Your Future Scotland will culminate with the launch of a website in spring 2010 which will feature some 300 online mini-exhibitions or 'vignettes’ – including those featured in ‘Hidden Highland Histories WW2’. For more information about the project and to view a sample exhibition, visit www.RememberingScotlandAtWar.org.uk
The vignettes and related historic objects will be available as a classroom teaching aid via Learning and Teaching Scotland’s new Scottish schools’ intranet, “Glow”. This ensures that these projects become a rich educational resource for teachers and a global legacy for young people and the wider community.
Hidden Highland Histories WW2 opens on Saturday, 20 February and runs at Inverness Museum and Art Gallery until 20 March 2010. It is open from Monday- Saturday, 10am to 5pm and entry to the exhibition is free.
-Ends-