South East: “Remembering Forgotten Heroes”

The group at Woking Cemetery gateway This project was developed in partnership with the Undivided Indian Ex-Services Association, Slough.  For a year it incorporated site visits to four nationally significant war memorials in the South East dedicated to Indian soldiers, as well as reminiscence and oral history.  It enabled participants to reflect upon the concept of memorial and its relationship to their own experience of the Indian Army and in turn the Army’s relationship to Britain.

The project also involved working with young people from Aik Saath. Aik Saath is an organisation of young people dedicated to the promotion of peace and racial harmony, through the teaching of conflict resolution skills in the local community of Slough and its surrounding areas.         

Members of the Undivided Indian Ex-Services Association with members of Aik Saath Members of Aik Saath met with the ex-servicemen to find out about their lives and as one young person remarked,

“I didn’t know so many people fought in the Second World War from India, let alone the First and you know I really want to know about my roots”.  

  Exhibition on tour at Woking Museums, June 2005 

 

As part of the project an exhibition was created which toured the South East region from April to October 2005.  A brochure was produced in conjunction with the exhibition: in one South East county it is now being piloted as a resource to support a Key Stage 3 history unit.