by Kate Sullivan
Experience, Impact, Legacy
Aberystwyth atWar 1914-1919:Experience, Impact,Legacy is acommunity projectfunded by theHeritage LotteryFund and led bythe Department ofHistory and WelshHistory, AberystwythUniversity.It brings togetherthe National Libraryof Wales,Ceredigion Archives,CeredigionMuseum, AberystwythArts Centre, and local community performanceand heritage groups, to bring alive local stories andexperiences of being at war 100 years ago.
The project aims to create a community legacy forfuture discovery and interpretation, and our volunteersare researching the local stories that make upthe wartime history of the town and surroundingareas, with special access to Aberystwyth’s amazingarchive collections, and training in how to researchrecords, letters, newspapers, photographs, war memorialsand family memories. There is also a monthlydrop-in session at the Ceredigion Museum café,where volunteers can come along, ask questions andshare findings over a cup of coffee.
Our objective is to tell the story of Aberystwyth atwar in performances, exhibitions and special events,and through an on-line archive and digital map. Wemarked Armistice weekend with a film showing ofJourney’s End (1930) at Ceredigion Museum, andhave just launched an exhibition of First World Warimages and pictures in the Arts Centre café, whichruns until 2 January 2019. A key exhibit is a wartimeeramap of Aberystwyth that identifies the home addresses of 200 of the over 800 servicemen fromthe town who went to fight in the war. This is a previewof our ongoing digital map project, where weaim to pinpoint every house in the area from which someone went to war, on a publically accessible website.
There are also plenty ofother events plannedfor next year, includingguided walks, presentationsof findings tocommunity groups, aconcert reproducingthe music of the Belgianrefugees who found ahome in Aberystwythduring the war, anda community theatreperformance based onthe wartime letters ofBilly and Dot, a captainin the Cheshire Regimentand a student atthe university, who metwhen the Cheshireswere stationed in Aberystwythin 1915. Billywas killed in 1917; Dot,who lived until shewas 94, never marriedand kept his lettersher whole life. Readingsfrom their letters,performed by studentsfrom Penglais and PenweddigSchools, formedpart of the recentservice at St Michael’sChurch to mark the centenaryof the Armistice.
If you are interested in volunteering on the project, getting involved in our events and activities, or have family memories and stories of the war thatyou would like to share with us, please contact Dr Siân Nicholas, Project Lead, on shn@aber.ac.uk, or Kate Sullivan, Project Co-Ordinator, on kas99@aber.ac.uk.Follow us on social media – blog :https://aberystwyth-at-war.blogspot.com; Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aberystwyth.atwar; Twitter: https://twitter.com/AtAberystwyth. We would like to thank the players of the National Lottery formaking this project possible. Images courtesy of the National Library of Wales.