As part of the Festival of Museums 2014 programme we held two great events:
A Romp Through Time involved the local primary school children working with David Hunter the Eden Court Outreach Officer to create a special play to commemorate the Bicentenary of the Clearances. The students worked really hard to write and perform their own play exploring their local history. The play was staged on the 16th of May to a packed hall full of family and friends.
The next day we launched our community curated exhibition ‘A Mackay Journey’ which was part of the “My heart’s in the Highlands” Homecoming 2014 project. The exhibition was created by the Museum’s extraordinary volunteers using the Heilam Ferry Collection to explore the story of one family’s journey from the time of the Strathnaver Clearances to the present day. The story begins with Annie Sutherland’s eviction from Totaig and the journey her descendants took first to Melness, then Caithness and the field’s of France during WWI. Discover how Annie’s Grandson Hugh Mackay escaped from a POW camp and how he evaded recapture. Hugh’s granddaughter Rhiona Mackay, a fourth year pupil at Farr High School, is one of the Museum’s valuable volunteers and loaned this exciting range of family memorabilia to the Museum on behalf of her dad, Allan Mackay of Hope, manager of Melness Sheep Farm.