Salute! is a tribute to the mothers, wives, sisters and daughters of Haghill who fought battles of their own on the Home Front, here in Glasgow while war raged in Europe and beyond. Battles against injustice; battles for the right to have a say in how their country was run – battles to put food on their tables and holds their families together in the face of Change. These were strong women and formed the bedrock of their community: their worlds were shattered by loss – but they picked up the pieces, as women always do, to rebuild what was lost in their own small corner of a much bigger world.
One hundred years ago, these women faced great challenges and pulled together to overcome those challenges. One hundred years on, in 2019, the women of Haghill and wider Dennistoun can – and ARE – doing the same thing.
Thematically, the subject of Salute! is the Challenge of Change: how we handle change, how we resist it – how we can become instruments of change ourselves, transforming our own lives, the lives of those we love and our local communities.
Sparked off by the lives of real women from the period and using Census records, we will be holding a series of intergenerational, family-friendly creative workshops and events for local schools and the general public, during April / May 2019, to investigate the connections and discover resonance between where we live now and who lived there 100 years ago. These workshops and events will be held in Dennistoun Library, Bluevale Community Hall and of the streets of Haghill itself.
By learning and sharing these women's stories we can begin to tell - and share - our own. And these first, small steps can effect big changes in all our lives.
The culmination of these workshops and events will be a performance of “Etta's War”, an immersive, site-specific drama set over the years 1914-1919, which will be performed in Bluevale Community Hall on the evening of Friday 28 th June 2019, exactly a century after the signing of the Treaty of Versailles. Inspired by real women from Haghill and using material generated by the workshops, “Etta's War” will involve professional and emerging actors, local musicians and singers along with students from the Kelvin College.
The project is generously supported by National Heritage Lottery Fund
If you live in Glasgow and would like to get involved in the project do get in touch!
We will soon announce our workshops so stay tuned!