Stonehenge
The Call to Arms, an exhibition produced by Wiltshire at War: Community Stories, will be on display at Springfield Community Campus in Corsham throughout March 2015. Using archive images and personal stories the exhibition shows the impact the First World War had on ordinary people in Wiltshire.
This will be the first of a series of displays which will be touring the county, looking at the different ways Wiltshire communities responded to the events of 100 years ago. The research for the exhibition has been carried out by local museums and heritage groups from across Wiltshire as part of a Heritage Lottery Fund supported project.
The website www.wiltshireatwar.org.uk, which has also been created as part of the project, allows people to upload and share their own family stories of the impact of the First World War, helping to create a record of how the conflict affected life across the county. Visitors to the website will also be able to search through extra content which is not in the exhibition.
Visitors to the Springfield Community Campus during March will also be able to see some of the research into the First World War which has been carried out by local groups including Corsham Area Heritage, the Corsham Civic Society and the Corsham Area Cadets as part of Corsham Commemorates.
Jonathon Seed, cabinet member responsible for libraries, said: “This fascinating project will play an important role in preserving the history of what happened to families locally, and will act as a poignant tribute to those who lost loved ones, a hundred years on from the conflict.”
To complement The Call to Arms display there will be a talk by Stewart Binns, author of ‘The Shadow of War’, at Corsham Library, on Thursday, 5 March, at 7pm. Tickets are free but need to be booked by calling 01249 713159. This book is the first in a series of novels which will be published each year throughout the war centenary years, tracing the course of the First World War and its impact on communities. Stuart is also a multi award-winning television documentary producer, responsible for the ‘Britain at War in Colour’ series.
