It’s been 85 years since our last war that changed the world. There are remnants of this war everywhere, in our grandparents, in the families who fell victim to Hitler’s reign (1933-1945) and the plaques for our fallen soldiers.
Both my grandparents lived through World War 2, my gran remembers the bombs and the air raid sirens going off. My late grandad had a lot of stories too and it wasn’t just the war, they were both quite young when the war started.
In our collection we have a large amount of memorabilia from World War Two:
Air Raid Precaution badges were introduced in 1936. Sculpted by Eric Gill, this brooch was to signify a person who has served for a month and they belonged to one of these 5 organisations:
- First Aid and Medical Services
- Rescue and Demolition Services
- Decontamination Services
- Air Raid Wardens
- Gas Detection Officers
Another object in our collection is quite cool actually:
This is a postcard from the 2nd Battalion when they Scottish Rifles in Palestine during World War Two, this was sent in 1936.
A bit of background on our Cameronians: The Scottish Rifles were established in 1881 and they mostly came from Dumfries, Galloway and Lanarkshire. They were in Palestine for a short while until they got deployed to France in 1939 and became a part of the British Expeditionary Force until 1940 and their final leg of their deployment was North West Europe in 1945.
In and around this time too, women who were called up for duty, they would be focussed on a variety of roles which include: mechanics, engineers, munition workers, air raid wardens as well as bus and fire truck drivers. Although this was for women in their 20s – 30s who were single, which is quite frustrating in this time of history as the assumption was that married women were to stay home, wait on their husband and look after the children. This changed in 1943 when 80% of the working women who were married were in factories, the home front and some were even in the armed forces.
An object we have in our collection relating to the topic of women’s roles is a uniform, which was worn by one of Scotland’s own: Anne Graham, she was from Motherwell!
Anne Graham, served in Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Nursing Service (QAIMNS) during the war. This is a fantastic topic to look at!
Delving into a brief history of QAIMNS, the origins and discovery of QAIMNS dated back to Florence Nightingale and her work during the Crimean War (1854 – 1856) that is amazing! In addition, the criteria for selecting potential nurses were quite strict; the nurses had to be single, young women of a good social standing and they would only be trained for 3 years by approved hospitals of the Nursing Board, there was about thirty-four board-approved hospitals at this time. The nurses, including Anne served on Normandy beach in July 1944.
After the Second World War, there were 12,000 nurses in the service! Amazing! In comparison to now, long after the Second World war we have 63,605 nurses just in Scotland!
About the Author
I’m Lex, a non-binary illustrator who has a very keen interest in archiving & research! Currently working as a Digital Collections Volunteer with the Curatorial Team.
