Exhibition focuses on final year of war
Show features poignant personal tribute to uncle
Jack Thomson
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lynsey.gair@reachplc.com kirsteen.brown@trinitymirror.com 0141 309 4312 The culmination of a fouryear-long exhibition to mark The Great War is on display at Paisley Abbey.
As the town prepares to fall silent on Armistice Day on Sunday, people can visit the 12th-century church to see the exhibition, which is now focusing on the final year of the First World War.
It has been mounted by abbey elder Cathy Craig, 75.
She said: “This is the final display that I’ve done for the end of World War I.
“It starts with the last 100 days offensive and goes on to peace and the armistice and the end- of- war celebrations throughout the world.
“There is a little bit about the bagpipers in World War I and the chaplains.
“Robert Gordon Millar, who had been an assistant minister at the abbey, was on of the soldiers who served in that war.
A silver tray that was presented to him when he left the abbey forms part of the exhibition.
“He left here in 1913 to go to St Mary’s, in Dumfries, and he was given the tray and a purse full of sovereigns as a parting gift,” Mrs Craig said.
“When he was killed, he had no family. Whether or not the tray was left in the church, we don’t know.”
Full of photographs and artefacts, the display also features Mrs Craig’s own personal tribute to her uncle who died in the war, George Scott.
“He was my father’s elder brother, and he joined the Gordon Highlanders in 1915,” she said. “He served throughout World War I. “He was from Whiteinch, in Glasgow, and served in all the major battles.”
Mrs Craig will be present at Paisley Abbey on Sunday when the congregation remembers the dead of both world wars and other conflicts.
“I always think of all the soldiers,” she said.
“Particularly, my uncle, because this year is the 100th anniversary of his death.
“I went over to France to mark the centenary, along with my husband, eldest son and his wife and their daughter.”
The changing exhibition has been be well visited over the four years of its existence, Mrs Craig added.
“A lot of people have commented on it,” she said.
The exhibition will run until Advent at the start of December.
This is the final display that I’ve done to mark the end of World War I Cathy Craig