As commemorations of the centenary of World War One continue, you may be interested in a recent addition to Scran’s oral history collections – Falkirk’s First World War.

This series of three interviews recorded by Falkirk Museums in 1984, presents the memories of local men and women who lived through the conflict. Listen to a soldier recount his experiences of fighting on The Western Front and women who worked in Falkirk’s munition factories recall the dangers of their work as well as the well-earned visits from concert parties.

Click on the links below to access each interview on Scran, where you’ll also find summaries with timecodes and full transcripts.  Or go straight to the full set of interviews here.

I remember my father saying to me, he says, ‘George,’ he says, ‘It’ll be all over long before you’re ready to go.’ Little did he know.

Listen to more from this interview with Mr George Gladstone

 

We all used to sing and sometimes they’d bring people in or a concert party in on a Friday at lunchtime and you got a longer lunch but they was sometimes terrible and we used to clap them and, you know when, and it was only because we didn’t like the thing at all [laughs]. But we used to clap them like anything.

Listen to more from this interview with Mrs Kathleen Templeton

Tell me about the time now that you saw the Zeppelin.

I was just coming home one night and everybody started to shout, it was dark. You know, they keep the furnaces and everything dark. And you saw this thing just going across the sky it’s like a double decker bus all lit up, you know, it sticks out in my mind, you can mind that, it’s plain. And there was one that was brought down in flames later.

Listen to more from this interview with Mrs Jean Paul

Images: © Falkirk Museums. Licensor www.scran.ac.uk