Every year, the Prince Philip Maritime Collections Centre opens up its site for a community day. This gives them the opportunity to showcase the work that they do both at the centre and in the community, and this event took place on Saturday, starting at 10.30am.
Sue and I arrived just before the start, and after parking our car we went inside, registered that we were there, and signed up for two sessions. The first was a 'Behind the Scenes' tour that was concentrating on some of the toys and games in the museum's huge collection (the museum has over 2.5 million items of which 90% is in storage at any one time). This started at 11.00am after a short poetry recital by a local poet, Joel Sydenham.
After a short visit to the climate-controlled room in which the pastel drawings and paintings are kept, we passed on to the area where the uniforms and textiles are stored. There we saw:
- An example of a tiny doll in the uniform of a Great War WREN (Women's Royal Naval Service).
- The teddy bear (named Humphrey) that was taken around the world by Tracy Edwards when she led the all-female crew of the yacht Maiden during the 1990 Whitbread Round the World Race. (They came second in the race.)
- A glove puppet of the Devil from a traditional Punch & Judy show.
The next stage of our tour took us to the 3D storage area, where we saw:
- A whistle carried by a female passenger aboard the Titanic. (The passenger gave it to a crewman of the lifeboat she eventually boarded).
- A board game named 'The sinking of the Titanic', which was produced by the Ideal Corporation in 1978.
- An eighteenth century jigsaw map of the World that was used to teach children.
- A set of bone dominos in a bone and wooden box that was made by French prisoners of war during the Napoleonic Wars.
Once our tour was over, Sue and I took a break outside before visiting the Mystery Room. This contained a number of maritime artifacts that visitors were allowed to handle, and we were then encouraged to write a poem and to tell a story about what we had chosen to pick up by the poet who had given the recital earlier in the day.
We then had a walk through the garden that is maintained by local schoolchildren (with the aid of volunteers) before attending a short speech by the mayor (Councillor Dominic Mbang), who then made a number of presentations to volunteers and local young people who had taken part in projects at the Centre.
At 1.15pm Sue and I (along with several other people, including the mayor) went up to the Reseach Room to listen to a short talk Simon Stephens, the Curator of the Ship Model and Boat Collections. He talked briefly about the sheer range and size of ship models in the museum's collection and then gave us the opportunity to look at a late nineteenth century toy model of a turreted ironclad ram ... which has now become my favourite ship model!
People were still arriving when Sue and I left at 2.00pm, and it looked as if the day had been a very successful event. Our thanks go to Khursheed Hussain, the museum's Collections Engagement Producer, the staff of the museum who were on hand to talk to attendees, and the volunteers who made the whole event so memorable.
