ON TV TONIGHT: Highland Archive Centre's Lorna Steele-McGinn to appear in Channel 4 series My Grandparents' War with Keira Knightley after 'Learn With Lorna' online series success
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AN Inverness-based archivist who launched a video series exploring archive collections over lockdown will be helping a world-famous actress find information on a family member in a TV show to be broadcast tonight (September 22).
Lorna Steele-McGinn (39), community engagement officer at the Highland Archive Centre and creator of the popular online video series Learn With Lorna, will be on Channel 4's latest episode of My Grandparents' War tonight as she helps actress Keira Knightley tracing back a family connection to the Highlands.
Ms Steele-McGinn was contacted in June by team members at Channel 4, who asked her to participate to the programme.
"I had no idea that I would be working with Keira until the day of the filming," she said.
"The troupe took me from Inverness to Plockton to shoot the episode and it was only then that someone told me 'Do you know that you will be working with Keira Knightley today?'
"She was so lovely, we had a lot of laugh and she seemed genuinely interested in my work and the archives.
"It was good because she said that although she is used to being filmed, she said she was not used talk without a script, being herself rather than playing a character and filmed while having a conversation.
"I was involved in looking at one particular member of Keira's family who had spent time in the Highlands during the Second World War. There was a nice surprise that we came across, and I told her some of the stories and shared some records, and talked about the role of the Highlands during the war, which people often forget about."
The call came after the success of an online series created by the Highland Archive Centre to showcase the collections across their sites in Caithness, Inverness, Lochaber and Skye and Lochalsh.
"The idea came during lockdown: with our buildings being closed to the public, we were conscious that our profile would drop a little bit. My job is so diverse, I work a lot with the public and schools, and all of that stopped, so I wanted to find a way to keep on sharing the collections.
"It's amazing how many doors this series has opened and how many people watched it. Apparently, the people on Channel 4 as well!
"It's always exciting to share the collections and the profile of the Highlands, and let people know what an archive is that they are welcome come to our centres out of the love for stories and history, or finding out about the area.
"Often these things snowball and we get donations to the charity or also people come to donate family letters or other items they think could be added to our collections.
"This is what I love doing, it's lovely to meet people and share people's life experiences and stories – that's where my heart lies."
Ms Steele-McGinn also recently filmed with BBC Antiques Road Trip, with the episode to be broadcast in the near future.
The episode will be on Channel 4 at 9pm tonight.
