Their Finest Hour

About

Do you have any Second World War related stories and objects passed down to you from your parents, grandparents and other family members?

Would you like to digitally preserve these stories and objects before they are lost to history?

Bring your diaries, letters, photos, memories, objects* or stories about your family’s wartime experience to our Digital Collection Day, at the University of Edinburgh’s historic Rainy Hall, where they will be recorded and added to a free-to-use online archive.

The Digital Collection Day is free to attend and you are welcome to turn up at any time on the day, however we would encourage you to register to help us to gauge numbers. You can register via the following link:

https://edin.ac/451MiRy

Rainy Hall is an accessible venue. If you have specific accessibility requirements, please contact the project team at theirfinesthour@ed.ac.uk.

* Please do not bring any potentially dangerous artefacts, including ammunition and weapons, decommissioned or otherwise, to the Digital Collection Day

This event is part of a nationwide campaign organised by Their Finest Hour, National Lottery Heritage funded project run by the University of Oxford, which is collecting and preserving the everyday stories and objects of the Second World War.

As these stories are fading fast from living memory, it is vital that they – and the wartime objects that often accompany them – are preserved for future generations. We are especially interested in collecting contributions from people from underrepresented backgrounds in order to increase the diversity of people benefiting from Second World War heritage.

At the Digital Collection Day, stories about your family’s wartime experience – and associated objects such as diaries, letters, medals, journals and ration books – will be recorded, digitised, and then uploaded to the Their Finest Hour online archive, which will be free-to-use and launch in June 2024.