STORIES OF local heroes, propaganda, escape and espionage make up a new exhibition in Dundee, which explores the hidden stories of the second world war.

Scotland’s Secret War, a touring exhibition from the National Library of Scotland, opens today at Verdant Works highlighting the Scots whose inventiveness and courage helped change the course of the conflict.

A number of people from the area are featured such as Peter Ritchie Calder—the propaganda director.

Calder was an author and journalist. He was born in Forfar and trained in journalism with The Courier in Dundee and then Glasgow, before moving to London.

During the war he wrote newspaper and magazine articles on the Blitz, and published two books on the subject, Carry on London and The Lesson of London.

In 1941, Calder was drafted into the newly created and top-secret foreign propaganda unit, the Political Warfare Executive.

From 1942 he helped create propaganda for many of the allied military operations—for example, Operation Torch (the allied invasion of north-west Africa) and from 1943 Operation Overlord (D-Day landings).

Also featured is the ‘back- room boffin’, Robert Watson Watt from Brechin, the man credited as having invented Radar technology.

On a darker note, the exhibition also features the story of Dundee hairdresser Jessie Jordan.

Jessie’s beauty salon at the corner of Rosebank Street and Kinloch Street was used by a Nazi spy ring in the United States as a forwarding address for messages.

In 1938 she was arrested as a spy and served four years in prison.

Dundee Heritage Trust will also be adding more local information to the exhibition on life on the home front in Dundee plus displaying items from the collections relating to the jute industry.

Gill Poulter, heritage and exhibitions director for Dundee Heritage Trust, said, “The stories are so fascinating and stirring that the exhibition will catch the imaginations of all our visitors, young and old.

“It reminds us that we should never forget the sacrifices that were made, whether at home or in battle.”

The exhibition is in the Verdant Works special exhibition gallery from today until Sunday, June 22.

Admission is free.