Memories Recovered Project to preserve veteran’s experiences
A documentary filmmaker is wanting to tell the story of veterans across Canada, and will be interviewing Drumheller service men and women this summer.
Allan Cameron has been working on the Memories Recovered Project for the past few years and has interviewed on camera and documented the stories of more than 200 veterans. The videos are then provided to schools, museums, legions and families of the veterans to preserve the living history of veterans of World War II and the Korean War.
The Memories Recovered Project Association is registered as a non-profit organization.
“It has been really busy and we are trying to document as many as we can,” said Cameron. He has been in contact with Bill Eremko of the Drumheller Legion. “It is for all veterans.”
Currently they are looking for a site to conduct interviews and are hoping to get underway in the next few months.
The project is the brainchild of Cameron. He has an extensive broadcast background and has always has a keen interest in history. The immediacy of the project was brought to the forefront by his own experience.
“My uncle was with the North Nova Scotia Highlanders and was a carrier driver on D-Day. He went in the second wave, and went from the beaches to Germany. He is mentioned in the North Novies war diary,” said Cameron. “We were going to get together to have an interview with him back in 2001 and he was pretty busy at the time, and I moved out west. He said, ‘When you come back for a visit we’ll sit down and have a chat.’ I had this funny feeling in my gut it wasn’t going to happen and several months later I received the phone call that he passed away. He was trying to impress upon me how important this is to be done, and that was why he was stepping forward to talk. That was a catalyst to make it all happen.”
They did their first interview in 2006 in Calmar.
“The first few years were just gaining credibility for the project and letting people know I was out there. Once they started seeing what I was doing, that I was serious about it and actually cared, I think it brought a lot of people closer to the project,” said Cameron.
Since then, he has interviewed veterans from all points in Canada, although right now he is concentrating on Alberta for logistics.
His original intention was to get the documentaries into schools, museums and libraries. He has also learned the importance of getting the project to the families, and donates a copy of his work to each veteran’s family. He also makes sure a sponsoring Legion gets a copy of the work.
For more information on the Memories Recovered Project, go to www.thermp.org.