War diary will stay on display
kept
a war diary IN just six months 8,000 visitors have attended Stockport Museum’s Great War exhibition featuring as a focal point, a diary penned by an Englishwoman behind enemy lines in Germany.
The Keep the Home Fires Burning exhibition will be now staged for an extra year, until November 2016, after rave reviews.
It features the original chronicle and family photographs of Annie Droege – donated to the free entry exhibition by her great-nephew Mark Drummond Rigg, who has turned her handwritten notes into the Diary Of Annie’s War.
The exhibition, which opened last November, includes many other remarkable stories of bravery, courage and sacrifice by Stockport residents as it examines the impact of the Great War on the town.
Mr Rigg, from Hazel Grove, uncovered Annie’s diary in a dusty box and lovingly transformed her words into a book - the Dairy of Annie’s War, which has now been extended by New York Times best-selling author Rev GP Taylor and journalist Charles Yates with plans for a movie in the pipeline. The Diary of Annie’s War was penned in Germany during WW1 by Annie, who was originally from Edgeley, but later lived in Cheadle Heath and it is now on display in the Market Place museum.
Mr Rigg said: “It’s fantastic that the exhibition has been so well received and is being extended.
“And I am delighted local schools are studying Annie’s diary as it chronicles the horrors of war and has mixed in with it every day life, details of shortages, the prices of food and the tragedies that were all around on a daily basis.
“It also reveals her anguish when their country home is placed under siege in the dead of night by a mob of villagers who cut the phone lines and terrorise the family.”
Museum curator Joanne Dunn wrote to those involved in the exhibition. She said: “The most popular aspects of the exhibition by far have been the personal stories and the video/oral histories. visitors have said the exhibition has made them proud to live in Stockport.
The Diary Of Annie’s War by Annie Droege published by Grosvenor House at £10.99 available on Amazon and book stores.