Home Front Recall page one

Many Shetland women bravely wore a uniform and served in the ATS, WAAF, and WRNS but many more worked as nurses, land girls and a few even worked in ammunitions factories in England and Scotland where a few of them experienced the true horror of war in a big city.

Home Front Recall Project This web site was made possible by a grant from Home Front Recall, a joint lottery grant programme supported by Big Lottery Fund and Heritage Lottery Fund and delivered by Awards for All. HEARD is indebted to them for the grant and the opportunities this has made available.

The pupils from Urafirth Primary School, Hillswick took an active part in this unique reminiscence project by interviewing and recording stories about World War II. A concert featuring all the pupils was held in the Hillswick Hall and they staged an excellent programme of war time songs, poetry and a play about the war era that delighted all who attended.

Through this project the pupils have helped conserve this part of their history and they will be able to pass on the stories to future generations.

HEARD's Home Front Recall booklet project, comprises of a collection of local peoples memories and stories with extracts from some of the recorded interviews made. Together they acknowledge the contribution made by the folk of Northmavine during the Second World War and in doing so concentrates on the 'Home front' the name given to the war effort made by the folk at home rather than those who served overseas. World War II lasted from 1939 to 1945 and affected everybody in some way. A total of over 3600 men and women from Shetland were in active services during the war and over 350 of them lost their lives, 23 of these were from Northmavine.

Many of Shetland's men were in the Merchant Navy and already at sea when war was declared and it was unfortunately seamen who suffered the biggest loss of life during the war. When called up, Shetlanders proudly joined the Royal Air Force and the Royal Navy, while others served with the British Army at places like Dunkirk, North Africa, India and Japan. Some were captured and imprisoned and the photo on the left shows a group of soldiers who were held in a German concentration camp. Some were also held in Japan until the end of the war and many men continued to suffer the physical and psychological effects of their ordeal for the rest of their lives.

Hillswick Eshaness Area Regeneration and Development