York Museums Trust Blog

Our new website seems to have been in development for years and years, which is perhaps appropriate for a history site.

But at last its public! have a look: www.historyofyork.org.uk

The idea is that the site will continue to develop for many more years - so if you have any bright ideas for it, let us know.

She seems constantly surprised by how the people of York are attracted to her fame (we do have celebrities in Yorkshire, but the home-grown famous are tainted by too few degrees of separation – heavens, everyone in Leeds knows someone who went to school with a Kaiser Chief and if you experience afternoon tea in Betty’s without glimpsing Alan Bennet, I’d demand a refund.) She’s exotic and glamorous (being American) and defiantly surprising, as she’s here by choice, not the happenstance of birth.  So the people come, as moths to a flame (not that Tracy would ever burn anyone, not even on an off day.)  Last Tuesday they came in hoards, like their Viking ancestors. As we set out her desk with her handwritten ‘the writer is in’ sign, in a corner of the gallery, and she sat with her pen poised, I felt I had led a lamb to the slaughter.  Would she survive?  The crowd were bemused and buzzed like angry bees “When is she going to speak?” “Well,” I suggested, “I’m sure she’ll speak if you speak to her..”  and they buzzed some more.  She did survive…and the Viking bees seemed pleased to have met her.

Well, that was one of the most bizarre (but most fun) afternoons I have ever had! Today families were given the chance to try and protect two eggs - one was to be launched in a rocket, the other was to be thrown off the roof of the musem. And, of course, the aim of the game was to see if your eggs had survived.

For me the fun was to be had because I was one of the lucky members of staff who was able to go up to the roof of the Yorkshire Museum and throw eggs off it. It was really odd to be up there for the first time (it’s a little difficult to get to, and of course only employees with good reason to are allowed on the roof), to look down on people, and to be flinging away carefully prepared eggs. We had to throw the eggs far enough for them to stay away from the edge of the building and land on a target, but at the same time hope that a child wouldn’t be really disappointed if their egg hit too hard. One egg hadn’t been so well secured in a polystyrene cup and came flying out of it about half way down, smashing right into the middle of the target. The parachute gently followed it and came fluttering down all by itself… 

 We’re doing it all again tomorrow. I’m sure I can find the time to have fun throwing eggs off the roof  help out my colleagues with an important activity!

The culture of Museums using their assets to make extra cash is now well established in Britain. Some of the most successful ventures have been in venue hire.

These two photos were both taken on Friday afternoon in York - the first shows the work going on in York Museum Trust’s own medieval building - the Hospitium - and the second is at the National Railway Museum.

The Hospitium is to become the new centre of the Trust’s Venues business in April and the NRM have recently extended their conference facilities.  This will be the first time in 600 years or so that the Hospitium has proper plumbing - you can see some of it in the middle of the floor in the picture!

This is one of the corner towers of the York Abbey walls this morning. It’s normally the entrance to a riverside walk by Museum Gardens.

I’ve had my head buried in the History of York development site for the last month or so, trying to get enough material on there to justify going public.

I’ve learned all sorts of interesting stuff in the process, but my favourite nugget of info so far has to be this: Viking Male Grooming

One of the great things about working in a museum is the variety of the things we get up to. I think all the different things we do are all the more enjoyable because we don’t have to do one task all the time. It doesn’t seem long since we excitedly acquired the Cawood sword and in November I went to Germany to pick up a twice life-size stone head from a loan. We’ve been doing some work in the galleries to put objects on display that have previously been in storage, and that can be quite delicate, carefully handling objects with gloves and so on. What made me think of the variety, though, was the distinctly different job of constructing shelving in the off site stores yesterday! From careful, close work to moving around large chunks of metal and more bolt tightening than you could imagine… but, do you know, I think it’s the variety and complete changes of scene in the job that attracted a lot of us in the first place.

This little handbill has recently been added to the collection. The concert was part of the Beatles 2^nd UK tour, a tour which was to be headlined by the Americans Chris Montez and Tommy Roe. However, the Beatles’ single Please Please Me hit the top of the charts and by the time the Beatles came to York they were the headliners. It is right at the cusp of the outbreak of Beatlemania and illustrates the way in which the British came to dominate the 60s scene. The original booking form would have been at the bottom of the bill had it not been removed by an eager fan forty four years ago. One lady who went to see the Beatles at the Rialto said that it was a wonderful experience but, even though she was in the second row, she couldn’t hear the music for the screaming!

 When all the leaves are troublesome gold - a line from a poem written by my son when he was a scarily precocious 3 year old.  It always springs to mind (or should that be ‘autumns’ to mind?) at this time of year.

It’s nice to kick back and blog for a bit now the days are drawing in - there is definately a chill in the air. Here at the Art Gallery we have been passing around a cold of the worst kind, such that we may have to start painting crosses on the office doors. Thankfully I was able to escape from the heady atmosphere of Vicks Vapourub last week when I attended the engage conference in Bradford.  It was particularly welcome as it included a trip to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park on a day bright with sunshine.  The Andy Goldworthy installations are a must see.  You have not seen a wood pile until you have seen one of Mr. Goldsworthy’s. 

As a student I wrote a thesis on the romanticisim of nature in industrial societies and how this is reflected in the Green Man myth.  I wrote to several artists, asking for their feelings towards the Green Man - including Andy Goldsworthy - he was very generous in his reply, too busy to write to me, he recorded his answer on an audio tape, which he requested I return to him, as on the B-side were noises made by his baby son. His wife had recorded it for him whilst he was on a residency in Japan.  It is something of a regret that I didn’t have the where-with-all to make a copy of the tape before sending it back - baby noises and all. I still have the transcript (of Andy’s comments - not his son’s) though, painstakingly tapped out on my Remington portable - now I really am showing my age!

I like to watch the TV on a Sunday night and especially Heartbeat, well it’s my era!! This Sunday it was the espisode filmed in Marygate right outside St Marys Lodge and St Olaves Church, how different it all looked on TV. I remember the day it was filmed, all the vans and equipment and people for a five minute section of a TV programme!! Didn’t notice if we got a credit or not.

Gary