Newbattle at War a history of the Parish at war   

On 11th June, 2014 the National Mining Museum at Newtongrange threw open it's doors and invited the kids of Hawthornden Primary School to 'Takeover' for the day.

I had the pleasure of working with a group on a WW1 display and presentation along with Lynsey Anderson from the Museum staff.

The kids were really enthusiastic and asked lots of good questions, it was refreshing to see that another generation was most definitely interested in the Great War.

The day was based on a case study of Pte James Marchbank who went to war aged 14. I was able to tell the kids his life story with the aid of my photo collection and a host of great artefacts supplied by Tom Gordon of the Royal Scots Museum, it was nice to see Tom there but sadly his recently broken leg curtailed his day with us

After a busy morning's research, we pulled together artefacts to tell young James' story, half the team went off to prepare the exhibition case, whilst the other half stayed with me to put together a presentation for a group of parents attending in the afternoon.

Using the facts they had established from their research the kids, only 10 or 11 remember, put together a very good, concise story which they presented to the assembled group, in front of the exhibition case. It was well  received as you can see below

You can see P6's handiwork at the National Mining Museum until September and I would urge you pay a visit.