Bill McLaren's family are thrilled at Hawick Museum exhibition

To mark the occasion a new exhibition opened  at the Hawick Museum in the Bill’s home town earlier this month. 

The exhibition traces the life of the much-loved broadcaster and combines a collection of hitherto unseen artefacts from Bill’s career and life in an immersive digital gallery which includes a recreation of Bill’s chaotic study.

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Local historian, Dr Murray Watson, who helped curate the exhibition and who has known Bill since he was a wee boy said, “Bill was a multi-faceted character and was much more than just the Voice of Rugby. We plan to surprise and delight visitors using rarely seen memorabilia and photos, plus an array of innovative digital technology.

“The design team has managed to create several wow moments, and from the minute visitors enter the gallery they should feel the hair stand up on the backs of their necks”.

Bill’s daughter Linda Lawson said that the whole family are proud of the exhibition as would her dad have been although she believes that he would not have thought his life was worthy.

She also paid tribute to Dr Watson for his input.

She told Borders Rugby TV: “I’m very proud as I know dad would have been.

“The whole family are actually very thrilled that this is taking place. It’s been a long time in the preparation.

“But it’s come to fruition very nicely and I really love what I see.

“It will be well worth a visit I’m sure.

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“We have a huge debt of gratitude to pay to Murray (Watson) because right from the outset we were clearing out dad’s guddle and I would probably have recycled or binned an awful lot of the stuff because there is mountains of material.

“But Murray was fantastic. He said ‘No let’s keep that’ and ‘don’t throw that out’ and so we took it on board to maintain everything.

“He was so creative in his thinking and I’m just delighted for him that this has come to be.

“I did a lot of cataloguing of Dad’s big sheets and there were 700 of them alone. And on top of that we have books and newspaper cuttings, magazines, photographs.”

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"I think dad would have known that his voice would have lived on because we still see clips of those great commentaries he did over his broadcasting career.

“But I don’t think he would have thought that his life was worthy of an exhibition of this quality.

“And when I look around today and see his sayings up on the banners and all his memorabilia, a lot of which will be seen for the first time by the public, I think he would have been absulotely delighted.”