Recently Primary 7 visited Clydebank Museum and Art Gallery as part of their WWII topic. It was a very enjoyable day when the class dressed up and had some hands-on experience with gas masks, gas rattles (very noisy), shells made in Clydebank (without the explosive content on this occasion), etc. The story of the Clydebank Blitz was very interesting and we visited the actual command centre at the time, a basement room in the library, where we made an electrical light circuit and passed morse messages to each other.

Next we visited the Clydebank Art Gallery where there is currently a display of work by Scottish Artists, some on loan from the National Gallery and some works belonging to West-Dunbarton. We learned about two pieces of work from the WWII period which were on display, then we had a chance to look through the Gallery and discuss our personal preferences. The Gallery also has displays about shipbuilding in Clydebank and a handling kit for use by the children plus displays on the Singer Sewing machine factory which turned much of its production space to munitions during WWII.

This smaller gallery is a good size for visiting with upper primary children and the staff, who led our visit, made us very welcome and helped make the themes behind the art works accessible for the pupils.