Tynemouth WW1 Commemoration Project

 Pace of commemoration activity quickens as centenary approaches

The whole nation is now being alerted to the massive planned programme of commemoration and reminiscence of the events of 100 years ago when the country was plunged into a conflict the tragic outcomes of which the population could have had no imagination in the warm summer of 1914.
Locally, the Tynemouth project has an on-going range of activities which have awakened a strong interest in the local community in many aspects of the Great War. These events include academic lectures at Northumbria University, where we will conclude our landmark series of 2013/14 in May, when Professor Joanna Bourke of Birkbeck College of London University will deliver the final lecture; appropriately entitled ‘Armistice and disability’ –her conclusion of the series will review the aftermath of the conflict.  These lectures are free to attend and the final one takes place at 6.15p on Tuesday, 13th May at the City Campus East of the University opposite Manors Metro Station.

Anthea Lang will be looking at two local men of the area who had interesting parts in the conflict. Her talk to be given as part of the very popular series at the
Low Lights Tavern on Brewhouse Bank, Fish Quay, North Shields is entitled ‘Saint or Sinner – but which was which?  Anthea is looking at two local men from Gateshead, Brigadier Roland Boys Bradford VC the youngest man to achieve ‘field rank’ in the war (aged only 25) and a man named Rix unknown to almost everyone. We shall learn the answer to her question at 730pm on Tuesday 29th April, 2014. Tickets for this talk are free but must be obtained in advance from the Low Lights tavern, our workroom at Linskill Centre or Keel Row Bookshop, Fenwick Terrace.
Anyone interested to learn about the sources of World War One materials which have been assembled by the Europeana Project across the continent, from all nations involved in the conflict can hear a free talk from Alun Edwards of the University of Oxford’s Academic IT Services at 530pm on Thursday evening next week (24th April), again being given at the City Campus East of Northumbria University. The vast archive of materials gathered (mostly free to download) includes material of a local nature as well as from the battlefields [picture].

As the project’s major events approach we are preparing to open a public information point on Front Street Tynemouth in the vacant property adjacent to the Library. This will, when open, be a place where local residents and visitors to the very popular street can learn about the project’s work and forthcoming events.
Initially it will be open on week-ends and Bank Holidays from 3rd May but we hope that it can be open during week-days in the schools’ holidays if sufficient volunteers are willing to give a few hours to staff the information desk we will have to advise about our many activities. Anyone who might be able to offer a few hours a week is asked to contact the project at our workroom at Linskill. The shop will display some of our small exhibitions of materials we have gathered over the past three years as well as giving visitors an opportunity to view our critically acclaimed database of family biographies of local men killed in the conflict..