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Fishing Folk: forthcoming events

Events for May:

Newhaven Gala Day – join our local community celebrations
Saturday 24 May, from 12.30 pm at Newhaven Harbour

As many villages around Scotland know, the local gala day is one of the biggest celebrations of the year, and in our village of Newhaven, in a city that attracts performers from about the world, that is really saying something.

For the first time our Newhaven Fishing Folk Choir, will be entertaining the crowds with a mixture of fishing songs and a brand new ‘Song for Newhaven’, created by Jed Milroy and Victoria Primary’s P4 class especially to mark the occasion.

This event is open to – all
Tickets – Free

the disappearing sea – exhibition preview at the Wee Museum
Friday 30 May, 5 – 6.30 pm at Victoria Primary School

For the last few months artist Johnny Gailey has been working with staff and pupils at Victoria Primary towards the redisplay the Wee Museum.

Through workshops and visits to archives they have been learning about the history of Newhaven and what did happened to the sea…

Find out more about Fishing Folk and the Wee Museum by joining us for the opening.
The Wee Museum is open by appointment through out the year.

Newhaven History Day – getting together to discuss this place
Saturday 31 May, 12 – 4.30pm, Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop

Since earliest times Newhaven has been famous for it’s fishing, it’s shipbuilding and – it’s local community identity.

Our Newhaven History Day will gather together some of the voices of this place, residents and experts, to discuss the stories, songs and the rich heritage that is the fisher folks legacy. But as the last generations who remember the fishing industry pass on, how will Newhaven survive into the future?

This event is open to all

For further information contact:

Citizen Curator
Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop
21 Hawthornvale, Edinburgh, EH6 4JT

44+(0)7812167130

info@citizencurator.com
www.citizencurator.com

Your archive needs you! First World War for the Digital Age

First World War Diaries Go Online to Mark Centenary

Volunteers required for Operation War Diary

The National Archives has made the first batch of digitised First World War unit war diaries from France and Flanders available online via its First World War 100 portal. Once complete, it will comprise more than 1.5 million pages, opening them up to a global
audience for the first time. Also launched yesterday (Tuesday) is Operation War Diary, an innovative online crowdsourcing partnership project between The National Archives, Imperial War Museums (IWM) and Zooniverse, which aims to unearth the details from within the diaries.

The First World War unit war diaries are the most popular records from The National
Archives’ First World War collection (file series WO 95) and the first in a series of First
World War records to be digitised as part of The National Archives’ centenary
programme – First World War 100 – which spans a five-year period from June 2014 to
June 2019.

William Spencer, author and military records specialist at The National Archives
said: “Making the First World War unit diaries available online, allows people across the
world to discover the daily activities, stories and battles of each unit for themselves. It
also creates opportunities for the public, history enthusiasts, family historians and
researchers worldwide to explore the official records which may lead to some new
discoveries and perspectives of this important period of history.”

With some surprising revelations and astonishing stories, this first batch of unit war
diaries reveals the real-time account of the first three cavalry and the first seven infantry divisions who were part of the first wave of British army troops deployed in France and Flanders. They cover the entire period of the units’ involvement in the war, from their arrival on the front to their departure at the end of the war.

In this first batch of 1,944 digitised unit war diaries is the daily account of the First
Battalion South Wales Borderers in 1914 (WO 95/1280/3), providing insight into the
anxiety and terror of the opening days of the war with the First Battle of Marne and
Aisne, right up until June 1919 with an account of sporting events, such as tug of war
and rugby, and even farewell dinners marking the end of the war.

Other unit war diaries included in the first batch are:

• The 4th Dragoon Guards who fired the first shots in Mons. (WO 95/1112/1)

• 5th (Royal Irish) Lancers who saw action continuously from 1914-18, were in some of
the bloodiest battles and included the last British soldier to die in the First World
War, Private George Edwin Ellison, shortly before Armistice came into force. (WO
95/1134/2)

• 9th (Queen’s Royal) Lancers who were in the final “lance on lance” action of the First

World War. (WO 95/1113/2)

Read alongside other records in The National Archives’ First World War collection, such as the Prisoner of War interview reports (file series WO 161), the pieces of the jigsaw can be put together to form a catalogue of first-hand official accounts of the First World War.

Further batches of the unit war diaries will be released throughout the course of The
National Archives’ centenary programme.

Operation War Diary – Your Archive Needs You!

As part of the digitisation of the Unit War Diaries and to engage people in the centenary,
The National Archives is teaming up with Imperial War Museums (IWM) and ooniverse
to launch Operation War Diary. IWM’s expertise in citizen history and Zooniverse’s
citizen science technology, previously used to map the stars, is combined in this
innovative crowdsourcing history project which will enable the public to capture
information from The National Archives’ unit war diaries.

Volunteers who sign up to Operation War Diary will be assigned a segment of a unit war diary and asked to tag key details from the pages, such as names, places and events. The data inputted by volunteers will be collected and used to enrich The National Archives’ catalogue descriptions for the unit war diaries, enabling family historians around the world to trace their army ancestors and providing academics and researchers with a better understanding of how the war was fought.

Information gained through Operation War Diary will also be incorporated into IWM’s
Lives of the First World War project, which will launch in late Spring 2014. Lives of the
First World War is an innovative, interactive platform that will inspire people across the
world to discover, remember and share the life stories of those who served in uniform
and worked on the home front. By the end of the centenary it will become the
permanent digital memorial to more than 8 million men and women from across Britain
and the Commonwealth, saving their stories for future generations

100 unit war diaries have been made available on Operation War Diary in the first
instance, with more diaries to be added over the coming months and as they are
published on The National Archives’ website.

Volunteers wishing to take part in Operation War Diary can join the project here:
www.operationwardiary.org.

Luke Smith, Digital Lead for IWM’s First World War Centenary Programme said: “Operation War Diary will uncover new first-hand information about day to day life in the First World War – information that may not have previously been communicated through letters home or covered in traditional history books. This project will also be an
invaluable source for IWM’s Lives of the First World War as it will help today’s
generation to discover even more about the full life-stories of the people they choose to
remember.”

Chris Lintott, Founder of Zooniverse and primary presenter of the BBC series The
Sky at Night said: “History is an amazing and rich topic that many people love. We’re hoping to bring it onto people’s desktops and tablets in a new and amazing way. This
will be our first pure history project and we’re excited to tell our Citizen Scientists that
they now be Citizen Historians too!”

Maria Miller, Culture Secretary, Maria Miller, said: “The National Archives’ digitised First World War unit diaries will allow us to hear the voices of those that sacrificed their lives and is even more poignant now there are no living veterans who can speak directly about the events of the war. This new online vehicle gives a very public voice to some of these soldiers, through which we will be able to hear their thoughts and feelings. Using Operation War Diary, we can follow in their physical shadow as they fought across the Western Front.

“The First World War centenary is all about remembrance, recognition and
understanding. Yesterday informs today. The National Archives’ initiatives are at the
heart of the Government’s First World War centenary programme to forge lasting
connections between the past, present and future as we commemorate the lives and
bravery of all those who served in the First World War.”

Lest we forget – funding for schools to visit Western Front

Every secondary school in Scotland will be offered financial help to carry out educational visits to European battlefields as part of the Scottish Government’s plans to commemorate the centenary of the Great War, First Minister Alex Salmond announced yesterday.

A £2,000 grant will be made available to every senior school in the country to help them meet the costs of trips to Western Front battlefields and war graves so pupils can learn more about the sacrifice made by the many thousands from Scotland and elsewhere during the First World War.

The £1 million fund, which will be administered by Historic Scotland, will include additional subsidies for groups travelling to the continent from schools not on the Scottish mainland.

The educational grant scheme, which will span the six school years from 2013, comes after the First Minister announced a £1 million fund to allow communities across Scotland to refurbish and maintain their war memorials ahead of the commemorations. A full programme of commemorations in Scotland is expected to be announced by the First Minister shortly.

The First Minister said: “The sacrifice made by the many thousands of Scots and those fighting for Scottish battalions during the First World War must never be forgotten, and it is absolutely crucial that we take the opportunity presented by the centenary to help young people develop a deeper understanding of the causes, consequences and horrors of war and the devastation wrought by the conflict on communities in all corners of the country.

“Many of the soldiers who were sent to War in 1914 were not much older than school age and educational trips to see WWI battlefields provide an unforgettable experience for our young people, giving them a powerful insight into the trench warfare endured by millions on the Western Front.

“Many schools already run educational trips to the European battlefields, but this additional £1 million in funding will ensure that every secondary school in Scotland is offered financial help to take pupils and teachers to Europe during the centenary of the War, broadening the pupils’ knowledge of the conflict and ensuring that a new generation of Scots never forgets the unimaginable price paid by their forbears a century ago.”

Rev Norman Drummond, the chair of the Scottish Commemorations Panel body set up by the Scottish Government to recommend a preferred approach to Scotland’s commemorations of the Great War, welcomed the announcement. He said: “I am delighted that the Scottish Government will be funding Battlefield visits for our secondary schools. It is vital that we create an educational legacy as part of Scotland’s commemorative programme and these visits will enable our pupils and teachers to experience at first-hand the significant service and sacrifice given by so many Scottish servicemen and women throughout World War One.”

Denise Dunlop, President of the Scottish Association of Teachers of History, said: “This is a fantastic initiative that I hope all of Scotland’s secondary schools will welcome. Battlefield visits are a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for school pupils to learn first-hand about war and its horrible consequences. Many of these conflicts are glamourised in today’s society, and these trips offer a chance for young people to learn the truth about what happened to so many thousands of soldiers – many of whom were not much older than school age.”