The Green Howards Museum in Richmond is using the centenary anniversary of the end of the First World War to create a lasting link between local communities and those involved in the conflict a hundred years ago.
The Ribbon of Remembrance project will research and collate images of people affected by the events of 1914 to 1918, and whose relatives live in the Richmondshire area today.
As well as building an online catalogue of portraits and biographies, the museum team will also create a physical display between Richmond and Catterick Garrison, which people will be able to walk over the weekend of Remembrance Day in November.
This story continues after the adverts:
“We’re going to create our ribbon of remembrance by linking those immediately affected by World War One with the modern day,” said the museum’s learning officer, Carl Watts.
“By collecting photographs, stories and research we’ll encourage people to get involved and share their stories, or use this project as a prompt to begin some research they’d always meant to do but never got round to.
“We’re here to help, and we want as many characters as possible to feature on our ribbon.”
Sessions at Richmond, Risedale and Hackforth and Hornby schools will help raise awareness of the project, and spur youngsters into thinking about what is was like to live in the area during the First World War, as well as speaking to their families about relatives affected.”
In addition to images of those who served, the museum wants to include pictures of civilians – shopkeepers, traders, farmers, teachers, children, wives and sweethearts; those at home working, nursing, waiting, those who lived on, those who grieved, those who dealt with the aftermath of war.
Submissions can be made online via the museum’s website www.greenhowards.org.uk
“Your relative, or the person of interest to you, does not have to have been from this area, or have served with The Green Howards, or The Yorkshire Regiment as they were known in the First World War, what’s important is that you have a current link to the Richmond or Catterick Garrison area,” adds Carl, who will be hosting drop-in sessions at the museum throughout the year to help people wanting to submit a subject for the ribbon, but who may not quite know where to start.
During the First World War, The Depot, or headquarters was based in what’s now The Garden Village. Richmond Castle housed prisoners who, for religious or political reasons, refused to take up arms or work for the war effort in any way.
Richmond Station provided the vital transport link for many who served, providing a starting point to their journey wherever they were needed to fight. It was just over one hundred years ago that Catterick Camp came into existence, on a site first suggested by Robert Baden-Powell in 1908.
The Camp housed up to 42,000 men and, by the end of the war, 5000 prisoners of war. The first purpose-built link between Catterick Camp and Richmond, now Rimmington Avenue, was created by German prisoners in 1917.
The first Ribbon of Remembrance research drop in session is on Tuesday, February 6 between 10am and 4pm at the Green Howards Museum in Richmond.
