Eve Nicholson, a Master’s Degree student at Manchester University and Learning Practitioner at the Imperial War Museum North talks about her recent display project ‘Ordinary Lives, Extraordinary People’ at Portland Basin Museum.

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I approached Tameside Museums with a view to using the Manchester Regiment collections as a focus for my dissertation. Through discussions with Curator Michelle Hill and looking at the ‘Soldiers Stories: The Men of the Manchesters’ exhibition I decided to do a practical display-based project at Portland Basin Museum.

Even though I am from Lincolnshire, I grew up hearing about the Manchester Regiment and it was a subject I have been interested in for a while. When coming up with themes for the exhibition, I knew I wanted individuals at the centre of the exhibition. This exhibition highlights the importance of how ordinary people like you and me fought in the war. These individuals left their life behind to fight in the Second World War and they all have unique stories to tell. I decided to portray this by focussing on two individuals, linking them with photographs from other soldiers from the Manchester Regiment archive to put commemoration at the centre of the display.

Two individuals I picked for this exhibition were Harry Bright and Edward Schofield. When choosing who I wanted to display, I spent four months searching through all of the individuals in the Manchester Regiment archive and picked out collections that contained personal objects or interesting stories. The two soldiers I chose highlight how different war experiences were. Harry Bright was stationed on Malta and recorded his day-to-day life by taking photographs, whereas Schofield was captured in Singapore and was detained in a Prisoner of War camp. These two individuals who were part of the Manchester Regiment demonstrate how diverse stories were and how every single person who fought in the Second World War has a unique story to tell.

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Throughout this process I have kept in mind placing the individual’s stories at the centre ofthe exhibition, to ensure that ordinary lives are the focus to create relatability with the viewer.

‘Ordinary Lives, Extraordinary Stories’is on display at Portland Basin Museum until 23^rd July.

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