TO celebrate the Year of Young People, every week in 2018 The National is giving a platform to young Scots. This week, 14-year-old Jessica Donaldson
YOU may have heard, read about or even seen on TV the incredible project “Pages of the Sea” that created sand murals on beaches for Armistice Day. I heard about this from Alan Grieve, who runs an art group in Dunfermline that I am a part of. He also was the sand art facilitator for Pages of the Sea.
Alan told me about this opportunity on October 19 and I did not want to miss out on this. Not only would we be celebrating the war hero Elsie Inglis, we would also be celebrating the centenary of the end of the First World War.
Elsie Inglis, also known as “The Lady with the Torch”, was a doctor in the First World War. She was born in India but her parents returned to Edinburgh, where she called home. She was responsible for setting up Scottish Women’s Hospitals for Foreign Service Committee, which only had female staff but as this was in 1915 – they didn’t think of women when they thought of a doctor. When she offered her team of fully qualified women they were turned away from the Royal Army Medical Camp as they were women, but this did not discourage her – she then went to the French and they allowed her to help out.
Not only did she help soldiers from our side of the war, she also helped the enemy, she would help anyone who needed it. Obviously, this amazing woman did much more than just this, but this is what made her name celebrated.
On the day of Sunday, November 11, I got up at 6.30am and we had to leave at 7am at the latest! We then picked up two other girls – Kerrie Mansley and Amilia Derrek – who were helping with the drawing as well. We got to St Andrews beach at 8.40am. It was a very pretty but cold morning.
We started the drawing straight away by using a grid to map out the outlines (I did the right side and the hat with one other person) and that took us till 11am. We then began to remove the grid one by one, as we didn’t want to tangle the string. We finished the entire drawing by shading in the outlines with rakes.
I didn’t know what the finished art piece looked like until one of the men who were controlling the drones let me see the image from up above and I was blown away … it looked exactly like Elsie Inglis!
I hope that we could give this unbelievable woman justice for her heroic achievements. I am so honoured to have been a part of this project, one that will go down in the history books.
Why are you making commenting on The National only available to subscribers?
We know there are thousands of National readers who want to debate, argue and go back and forth in the comments section of our stories. We’ve got the most informed readers in Scotland, asking each other the big questions about the future of our country.
Unfortunately, though, these important debates are being spoiled by a vocal minority of trolls who aren’t really interested in the issues, try to derail the conversations, register under fake names, and post vile abuse.
So that’s why we’ve decided to make the ability to comment only available to our paying subscribers. That way, all the trolls who post abuse on our website will have to pay if they want to join the debate – and risk a permanent ban from the account that they subscribe with.
The conversation will go back to what it should be about – people who care passionately about the issues, but disagree constructively on what we should do about them. Let’s get that debate started!
Callum Baird, Editor of The National
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here