Latest news with #schoolProject
BBC News
17 hours ago
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Moray schoolgirl's message in a bottle gets reply from Norway 31 years later
A Scottish schoolgirl's message in a bottle has finally received a reply more than 30 years later - after being discovered in Beresford, from Portknockie in Moray, sent the message in 1994 when she was 12 as part of a school washed up across the North Sea where it was found by a volunteer cleaning up a Norwegian island - who then dispatched a postcard to the delighted sender to let her told BBC Scotland News she could not believe her original letter was in such good condition after three decades. Her handwritten letter had been sent in an empty bottle of Moray Cup, a fizzy drink produced in the north east of Scotland. It said: "Dear finder. My name is Alaina Stephen and I am 12 years of age. I come from Portknockie and I am doing a project on water so I decided to send a message in a bottle."My teacher's husband took them and dropped them in the middle of the ocean."When you find this message, please write back with your name, hobbies, where you found the message, when, and if you could, a little information about your area. Yours sincerely, Alaina Stephen. PS I come from Scotland." Now, 31 years on, Alaina has received a postcard from Pia Brodtmann, telling her the good news, with pictures of the said: "My name is Pia and I am from Germany. Today I found your message in a bottle on Lisshelløya, a tiny island around Vega in Norway."I am here for beach cleaning as a volunteer for four months and today we cleaned Lisshelløya. On the front of the postcard you can see our workboat Nemo and our sailboat Fonn, where we live. You can also see the area around Vega. I wonder when and where your teacher's husband threw your bottle in the ocean?"It added: "PS I am 27 years old and I like rock climbing and sailing a lot!" Alaina, now 42, said she as stunned when she picked up the post and noticed the postcard addressed to herself."I'm at the same address," she said."I did live in Buckie, and another house in Portknockie for a while, but moved back in with my parents."I couldn't believe it, as I had sent it when I was 12 years old, 31 years ago." Alaina was able to find Pia via social media, and messaged her asking to send a photo of her letter."I was shocked when she did, I couldn't believe how legible it was," she said."I can't remember actually writing the message, but I do remember it was a Moray Cup bottle, and that my teacher's husband had dropped it into the sea when he was a fisherman."According to my message, I had done it as part of a project on water. It was when I was in P7."She added: "Pia and I have been keeping in touch and hopefully we will continue to do so."
BBC News
14-05-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Falls Road schoolgirls create exhibit for Ulster Museum
Pupils at a west Belfast school have been stepping back in time to a world long before screens and smartphones by collecting vintage from St Dominic's on the Falls Road collected and displayed the toys as part of a school history their work was so impressive it has now gone on display in the Ulster student, Annabelle, said it made her think that children today have lost something. Dolls' houses and scrapbooks "Just playing with other people, out in the streets with your toys or in the house with your sisters or brothers, there is something lost because it's all on screens and you're all looking down and there's no interaction any more," the 18-year-old told BBC News pupils collected old dolls, dolls' houses, scrapbooks, annuals like the Beano and Bunty, 19th century embroidery kits and even a letter written to Santa in looked in attics and collected from parents, grandparents, teachers and classroom assistants and they raided their own history too."I brought in things from my childhood, like wee toys and we compared them to see how different they could be, or how similar as well," Annabelle said. Beano and Bunty Aimee said she found the books like the Beano and Bunty and other earlier annuals "most interesting"."It shows how different the children would have been back then because the stories that they read, we would never had those type of stories," the 14-year-old said."A lot of the toys are similar, but it's the material they were made out of and how they would have been played with."Theirs were a lot more delicate and you can see from years ago that they're still intact so it shows how much the children took care of their toys, as they only had a few." Get a free doll Olivia, 14, said the vintage toys had originally gone on display in the school library and had attracted a lot of interest from other pupils."We thought it would be a good idea to put up a museum of childhood for the school," she said."Once we'd put it up loads of people in the school liked it, so we kept it up for open day."One of my favourite things was a Palmolive fairy doll."You didn't buy it, you sent back some soap wrappers and you were able to get a doll for free." For 14-year-old Aoife, finding everything was the most interesting part."From the 1970s to 80s a lot of the teachers brought in some of their old toys," she said."We also got them to do surveys on what some of their favourite toys were."I enjoyed looking at the scrapbook because there were really pretty designs in it."It's nice to see how, even back then, there was still some similarities to what we would collect now."Some people still do scrapbooking and journaling."The St Dominic's vintage toy exhibition was soon noticed by experts from the Ulster Museum and is now on display in the museum's history discovery Barker from the museum said what the girls had collected showed their "passion and enthusiasm" for history."One object can have so many different connections to many people and mean something different to so many people," she said."And I think this display really reflects that."It may inspire people to want to know more, inspire their curiosity."
