Black Watch Museum takes role in online museum

Jul 13 2010 Perthshire Advertiser Tuesday

WAR veterans from Perthshire are among those who have helped shape the Museums Galleries Scotland project, Remembering Scotland At War.

The pioneering online initiative includes a social networking area particularly aimed at ‘capturing memories’.

It showcases and encourages personal accounts from civilians, younger and older veterans, and currently serving military of how conflict has affected them.

Funded by the Big Lottery Fund, Remembering Scotland At War features over 200 exhibitions, interviews, photographs and footage spanning from the Second World War to more recent conflicts including Iraq and Afghanistan.

As part of developing the online museum, Museums Galleries Scotland worked with 13 museums and galleries across Scotland to create the thought-provoking exhibitions, including the Black Watch museum at Perth’s Balhousie Castle.

Through the exhibition entitled, ‘This Happens in War’, the Black Watch venue collaborated with YMCA Perth to gather and record personal emotive and humbling memories from members of the famous 51st Highland Division, the Wrens and National Serviceman.

It has also worked with Atholl Country Life Museum and the St Andrews Preservation Trust to find stories, photographs and artefacts from the war on the home front.

The Black Watch museum’s contribution covers conflicts from the Second World War to the Korean War and the Kenyan insurgency.

Topics from the war at home to conscription and national service to war zones in North Africa, France, Germany, Korea and Kenya are brought to life through the life stories and memories of veterans from Fife, Perthshire and Angus.

Among the Black Watch veterans featured in the digital museum is George Arnott (87) who lives in Comrie.

Mr Arnott joined the divisional headquarters of 51st Highland Division in April 1943. He witnessed the defeat of the Germans in North Africa and then fought his way across to Sicily and Italy.

He took part in the Normandy landings in June 1944 and was in Holland and braved the snow of the Ardennes offensive in early 1945 before being invalided out of action just as the 51st Highland Division entered Germany.

Ruari Halford-MacLeod, who led the Black Watch museum contribution, said: “This project has been a fantastic opportunity to work with local veterans and young people to gather stories from the Second World War and the Korean and Kenyan campaigns.

“It’s been a hugely beneficial experience for all involved and we’ve created a remarkable resource for the future.”

In addition to the online museum’s exhibitions, there is an interactive social media area where personal memories can be exchanged and anyone can create a profile to upload their own reminiscences, photographs and videos, discuss exhibitions and make comments.

To explore the exhibition or to ‘add a memory’, visit the museum at www.RememberingScotlandAtWar.org.uk

The Black Watch museum’s touring exhibition ‘This Happens in War’ is at Atholl Country Life Museum in Blair Atholl until September 30.