Project information “shop” opens in Tynemouth village

New Tynemouth 'Shop'

The Project was delighted to be able to speak with many of the Bank Holiday visitors to Tynemouth Front Street as it opened its information centre to callers on Sunday, 4^th May. The shop is next door to the Tynemouth Branch library and has been made available by North Tyneside Council to help the project promote the many commemorative events planned for the coming months.

Many people from across the region and from further away, who were previously unaware of the project were able to talk with project volunteers staffing the shop and gain an insight into our three years researches which have produced the detailed biography of many of the more than 1700 men of the former Borough of Tynemouth who died as a result of the Great War.

The two days of opening produced a number of valuable new contacts for the project and further information to add to our records will be forthcoming in the coming days.

The shop has displays of two of our small exhibitions featuring the story of the loss of the Pilot Cutter Protector on New Year’s Eve 1916-17 together with the story of the Somme Campaign of 1916 and the enormous human cost to the local community.

Information about all of our forthcoming events is available and prominently featured in the windows providing public awareness on a 24 hour basis.

The shop will be open on week-end days from 1100-1600 and we hope to open every day during school holidays through to the end of August.

As well as a number of the project publications, books focussed on the Great War will be available for purchase and volunteers will be on hand to demonstrate our detailed database which will be launched on the internet .

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Tickets for the play specially commissioned by the project and written by North East playwright Peter Mortimer of Cullercoats are now available from the shop, as well as from Linskill Community Centre reception, North Shields Customer First Centre (library) reception and Keel Row Bookshop, Fenwick Terrace, North Shields. Death at Dawn - a soldier’s tale, telling the story of a young lad, William Hunter from Coronation Street, North Shields, who was executed for military offences in February, 1916 will be directed by Jackie fielding an produced by Cloud Nine Theatre Company at Linskill Community centre in their newly- enhanced and furnished theatre space. Tickets can also be bought on-line from Ticketweb through the project website www.tynemouthworldwarone.org

Tickets for the next in our series of talks at 7.30pm on Tuesday, 27^th May at the renowned Low Lights Tavern, Brewhouse Bank, Fish Quay, North Shields are now available from the Keel Row Bookshop and the project workroom at Linskill Centre. Ian McArdle, who has delivered a number of our talks will relate the experiences of a young doctor in the conflict in his talk entitled: Charles Wilson – a young doctor on the Western Front. Wilson went on to become Lord Moran and personal physician to Winston Churchill in later years.

The final lecture in the series organised in conjunction with the University of Northumbria will be delivered by Professor Joanna Bourke of Birkbeck College, London University on the subject of Armistice and disability telling of the outcome of four years of terrible fighting which and consequences for many of the survivors and their families for decades after the fighting ceased. The lecture will be given at 6.15pm on Tuesday, 13^th May at the City Campus East at Northumbria – opposite Manors Metro station – parking available from 5pm (charged).