Mosaic of Wartime Alyth
A Mosaic of Wartime Alyth consists of a collection of extracts from the Alyth Town Council records - minutes and correspondence - to be read out aloud (the script is available to download as a pdf from the right hand side of this page). It was compiled by the Friends of the Perth & Kinross Council Archive and presented to the people of Alyth at the Ogilvy Rooms on the evening of Thursday 5 June 2008.
The format was inspired by an evening at Innerpeffray Library, when the Laird of Dollerie, assisted by a group of readers, brought correspondence from his family records, and experiences of Perthshire people during the 1745 Jacobite Rebellion, to life. This clearly demonstrated that written archives are not necessarily dull and inaccessible. Friends of the Perth & Kinross Council Archive know that "their" archive is anything but dull and thought it might be a good idea to present a true story from it.
Browsing through the records of Alyth Town Council for 1939-1945 we were impressed by the number of human interest stories, as well as fascinating historical detail, they revealed. Interesting material was so plentiful that the first draft of the Mosaic was more than twice the length of the final, edited version.
First-hand memories of the Second World War are now limited to people in their 60s and older. It therefore seemed appropriate to bring certain aspects of wartime life in Alyth to public attention, both to show that written archives can offer an interesting and amusing insight into the past and in the hope of learning from those with direct knowledge of Alyth during the Second World War.
If there were enough interest, the Friends would be delighted to undertake an oral history project to preserve individuals' wartime memories for future generations.
Anyone interested in contributing personal memories, or reported memories, is warmly invited to contact the Friends of the Perth & Kinross Council Archive, care of Alyth Library or care of Perth & Kinross Council Archive.
Margaret Borland-Stroyan
Chairman, Friends of Perth & Kinross Council Archive
Alyth Burgh records
If you would like to look through the records that were used for the Mosaic of Wartime Alyth, visit the Archive and ask for collection AL1/1/10-12, which are the Town Council's minute books covering 1936-1948.
