Scorrie Strories - 'Ghost Walk' round Wick - Tuesday 26th June

20th June 2007

Hot on the heels of this weekend's major maritime event in Wick and Lybster, with visits from the Moray Firth Flotilla, pupils from Wick High School are preparing to make a unique creative response to their home burgh's history and heritage, to be performed next Tuesday.

The pupils are members of an after-school drama club run by Eden Court's Caithness & North Sutherland Drama outreach worker, David Hunter, who has worked with many other local groups since taking up post two years ago. Along with Highland Council's Cultural Co-ordinator in Schools, Christine Russell, David was keen to create a project that would create links with Wick Heritage Museum, which has a huge resource of artefacts, exhibits and archive material relevant to the whole of the county, but particularly to Wick itself.

The Museum has been an ideal resource to introduce the drama group to their own history, using it as the core source for themes and ideas they can develop into a series of short dramatised scenes. These short scenes will then be connected using the device of a 'ghost walk' round specific sites in the town, where members of the public will be a promenade audience. Run by members of Wick Society chaired by Donald Sinclair, the Heritage Museum represents a real labour of love. Situated at the heart of the redevelopment of Pulteneytown, the Museum itself continues to grow, and its volunteers have been crucial to the project, bringing essential warmth and enthusiasm to pupils' visits.

As well as from Wick Heritage Museum volunteers, pupils have had generous and colourful input from some prominent local individuals, who have helped put museum exhibits into human context. Writers David Morrison, George Gunn and Jenny Stewart have all met with the pupils over several afternoons, sharing with them family history, anecdotes, stories and songs, which pupils have been using to build up ideas for the characters they will 'stage' round Wick on Tuesday afternoon. This Thursday, local singer-songwriter and storyteller Nancy Nicolson, home on holiday from Edinburgh, will join Frank McCaffrey to add to the stock of ideas the youngsters have to draw on.

'It's been wonderful to see the kids connect to their heritage through the stories told by the guest speakers and museum staff,' comments David Hunter. They've given a huge inspiration for the young actors to start on their own stories.'

Cultural Co-ordinator, Christine Russell sees 'Scorrie Stories' as in ideal arts/heritage education project:

'The drama group have risen to the challenge of proving that learning and fun don't have to be mutually exclusive. Everyone who has given time to this project has helped in their own way to make sure that a little bit of Wick's human history is never forgotten.'

'Scorrie Stories' will be performed three times as a guided walk round Wick on Tuesday 26th June. Starting in the Market Square (outside Wetherspoons) at 1pm/2.30pm and 4pm, the walk will end outside Wick Heritage Museum. The charge will be £2 (£1 Concession) - all proceeds will go to Wick Heritage Museum.