The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Exhibition highlights war’s impact on families
The story of how ‘war to end all wars’ touched the lives of so many is being told
The story of how war touched the lives of local people is being told in a new exhibition.
The Scottish Fisheries Museum in Anstruther is staging Lest We Forget: Remembrances of World War One to highlight the stories of some of those commemorated on memorials.
It also describes how their lives were touched by war and how local communities remember them.
Sunday marks the centenary of the end of the “war to end all wars”.
A year later a service of remembrance was held in London at a temporary cenotaph to honour the fallen.
A century on, this event is more widely observed than ever but the exhibition asks how people should commemorate events which are slipping from memory.
Like most Scottish communities, Anstruther and Cellardyke were deeply affected by the First World War. The war memorials list the names of those who served on board ships in the Irish Sea or Adriatic, in the trenches or behind the lines in northern France or Gallipoli, or in the fledgling air force.
The Scottish Fisheries Museum, in partnership with the Anstruther and Kilrenny Burgh Collection and with funding from the Royal Burgh of Anstruther Common Good Fund and McCarthy and Stone, has brought together many items which show the role ordinary people played in this extraordinary event.
One of those features in the exhibition is Private Alex Doig, pictured, of The Black Watch (Royal Highlanders).
There are many stories from the battlefield of lucky Bibles saving the lives of soldiers by stopping bullets or shrapnel fragments.
But sadly, Mr Doig, who had been a coachman at Grangemuir outside Pittenweem, was not so fortunate.
Mr Doig, whose name is inscribed on Anstruther Wester war memorial, was killed by shrapnel from a shell burst on February 9 1918.
The tragedy happened as Mr Doig, who was married with two young children, was speaking to his brotherin-law.
His pocket Bible was unable to save his life but still bears the scars of war.
The exhibition runs until January 20.