Fusiliers Museum at Alnwick Castle inspires students to write moving and sensitive poetry

Students have been inspired by a VIP visit to the Fusiliers Museum at Alnwick Castle.
Left to right: Eloise Barber, Amy Miller-Trotter, Claudia Ilderton, Izzy Hamer, Hermione Lewis and Sophie Birt.Left to right: Eloise Barber, Amy Miller-Trotter, Claudia Ilderton, Izzy Hamer, Hermione Lewis and Sophie Birt.
Left to right: Eloise Barber, Amy Miller-Trotter, Claudia Ilderton, Izzy Hamer, Hermione Lewis and Sophie Birt.

Members of the Duchess’s Community High School’s Creative Writing & Poetry Club were invited.

This followed a successful collaboration last summer, when museum curator Samantha Levy visited the school to bring First World War artefacts and photographs to inspire the students’ writing.

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A number of moving and sensitive poems were generated, and the Fusiliers Museum is looking to display some of the work next to the artefacts themselves, and some poems will be projected onto screens in the museum.

The Fusiliers Museum, within the grounds of Alnwick Castle but free to enter, is keen to work further with DCHS and other schools with a variety of age groups.

The museum celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2020, and the students are planning to write more poems to contribute to a special event next year.

Museum staff said their visit to DCHS was the most rewarding school visit they ever had, due to the enthusiasm and respect shown by the students. A group of visitors even approached supervising staff to say how impressed they were by the attitude and enthusiasm of the youngsters.

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Mrs Newton, who runs the club, said: “The students really did us proud and it’s wonderful to know that DCHS poems are to be part of local history. The museum has 80,000 visitors per annum, so our poems are going to reach quite a wide audience.”

The staff and students thanked Samantha Levy for her work and enthusiasm.