Theatre of Remembrance

Date: 
Thursday, 27 September, 2018
?The Scottish Council on Archives has received a National Lottery grant of £9,600.00 for its ‘Theatre of Remembrance’ project. Awarded through the Heritage Lottery Fund’s First World War then and now programme, the project will focus on using material held by local archives to create dramatic performances, bringing to life the voices and stories of individuals and their communities during the First World War. The project will be delivered in partnership with the Aberdeen City and Aberdeenshire Archives and East Dunbartonshire Leisure & Culture Archives.
 
Groups of young people aged 15-18 from Mackie Academy in Aberdeenshire and Turnbull High School and Boclair Academy in East Dunbartonshire will work together to develop scripts directly from WWI diaries, letters and archive material. The collections offer insight into the experiences of poets, fisherman, nurses, soldiers, families and conscientious objectors. Each school group will work with two experienced theatre professionals to deliver a series of public performances for their local communities.
 
The young people will be involved in every aspect of the project from developing the script through to stage, sound, lighting and performance. The live community performances will be filmed and performed around the time of the 100-year commemoration of Armistice day on 11 November 2018. 
 
In support of the Scottish Government’s Year of Young People, the project will highlight the contributions young people make to culture and heritage. Through dramatic performances of the accounts of those who lived through the First World War, the project will offer young people and their communities the opportunity to connect to their heritage in moving and immediate ways. The students will gain new skills and confidence in performing, alongside an in-depth understanding of the lived experiences of the war. 
 
The young performers will be giving voice to the poignant and compelling stories found in local archives. The East Dunbartonshire Leisure & Culture Archives service holds letters written by three brothers from Milngavie to their parents while they were each on service in France. The letters contain three very different experiences of the war ranging from dramatic hand-to-hand combat, injury and loss of friends through to capture and imprisonment and requests for supplies from home. All three brothers survived the war, returned to East Dunbartonshire and lived there until the 1970s, dying within three weeks of each other. The collections also include diaries written by two East Dunbartonshire nurses who served in hospitals near the front lines in France. The accounts describe their daily lives in detail, including an account of a zeppelin raid and long hours of caring for wounded men, alongside excursions into cities like Paris and Rouen.
 
Aberdeen City and Aberdeenshire Archives also holds a wealth of material for local young people to bring to life. The collections have more emphasis on the Home Front in NE Scotland and include correspondence about its effect on farm labourers and fisher folk, rolls of honour including a photographic one for Auchindoir and Lumsden, a school log book noting details of what happened to former pupils during the war and the head teachers emotions about this, and the conscription tribunal of a Stonehaven pacifist – these last two linking with Doric language poetry written at the time about these subjects. A memoir of a North East fisherwoman who followed the fishing fleets down the coast from Fraserburgh to Scarborough during wartime describes the harrowing death of her brother in battle and the return of his still blood-soaked kilt to the family by the army. The fisherwoman also relates the experiences of her peers working in factories, where young women were unable to have children after exposure to chemicals.
 
The performances will be open to everyone in the local community, with dates announced in the coming weeks.
 
Commenting on the award, SCA Director John Pelan said: “We’re delighted that the Scottish Council on Archives received this support thanks to National Lottery players. Scotland’s archives document complex human stories and it’s important that these stories are shared. We’re pleased that young people will have the opportunity to learn about the impact of the First World War and to share the lived experiences of local people with their communities.”
 
Sandy Marshall, Chair of EDLC Trust, said, "The EDLC archives and local studies collections are wonderful local resources, full of fascinating accounts of men and women from East Dunbartonshire who were involved in the First World War on the battlefront and at home. 
 
"We are thrilled to be working with the Heritage Lottery Fund, Scottish Council on Archives, Turnbull High School and Boclair Academy on this exciting project. The pupils will learn about a tragic period in history in new and innovative ways using original local sources and discover for themselves the stories behind the people from this area whose lives were changed by the First World War.
 
"This year marks the culmination of the centenary commemorations of the First World War. This creative project gives local pupils an opportunity to commemorate the conflict and reflect on the devastating impact it had on their communities."
 
Ruaraidh Wishart, Senior Archivist at Aberdeen City and Aberdeenshire Archives, said “We’re delighted to be given the opportunity to work with the Scottish Council on Archives and Mackie Academy on an important project that will allow young people to explore and tell stories contained within their local Archives about how the First World War affected communities in their area. Archives not only have the potential to educate communities about their history, but to also act as a powerful tool in developing skills and confidence in other areas of the Curriculum. This project is an excellent example of this kind of cross-curricular working, and we welcome the opportunity to be a part of it.”
 
Lucy Casot, Head of HLF Scotland, said “The impact of the First World War was far reaching, touching every corner of the UK. Since April 2010, the Heritage Lottery Fund has awarded over £70million to more than 1,300 projects – large and small - that are marking this global Centenary; with our small grants programme, we are enabling even more communities like those involved in Theatre of Remembrance to explore the continuing legacy of this conflict and help local young people in particular to broaden their understanding of how it has shaped our modern world.”
 
For further information, images and interviews please contact Victoria Brown, Programmes and Development Manager at the Scottish Council on Archives on 0131 535 1361 or v.brown@scottisharchives.org.uk