Their Finest Hour is a national campaign to preserve the stories and objects of the Second World War. The event is organised by Their Finest Hour, a team based at the University of Oxford and funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, which is collecting and preserving the everyday stories and objects of the Second World War.

As these stories are fast fading from living memory, it is vital that they – and the wartime objects that often accompany them – are preserved for future generations.

At the Digital Collection Day, stories about your family’s wartime experience – and associated objects such as diaries, letters, medals, journals and ration books – will be recorded, digitised, and then uploaded to the Their Finest Hour online archive, which will be free-to-use and launch in June 2024. The project team is especially interested in collecting contributions from people from underrepresented backgrounds in order to increase the diversity of people benefiting from Second World War heritage.  

This is an opportunity for you to memorialise your ancestors’ experience during the Second World War by bringing together their documents and objects, as well as their memories (told by you).

Made possible with Heritage Fund.