A self-proclaimed teacher at heart, Steve Gardam is a good fit for his new role as the director at the Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre.
“I cut my teeth doing education sessions for all ages,” says Gardam, who started as an educational tour guide at the Houses of Parliament, later going on to champion a youth apprenticeship programme at the London Transport Museum.
The Roald Dahl Museum is in Great Missenden, an idyllic little town in Buckinghamshire where the late author lived for 46 years. The man behind classic children’s novels such as James and the Giant Peach and Danny, the Champion of the World would have been 100 years old this year. There is a national celebration to mark this anniversary, and Gardam is clearly excited about all the activities going on.
“We’ve lent the largest set of archive material that we’ve ever loaned to the Southbank Centre in London for their temporary exhibition, The Wundercrump World of Roald Dahl,” Gardam says.
The show transfers to the Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff from 12 August, which makes particular sense because Dahl was born in Cardiff and went to school in Llandaff.
“They’re running an amazing arts festival called City of the Unexpected over the weekend of 17 September, just after Dahl’s actual birthday on the 13 September,” he says.
Gardam is helping to develop these celebrations and is encouraging schools to register and download Roald Dahl party packs from the museum’s website to host their own Dahl-themed parties on the author’s birthday, which happens to be a school day.
Party on
There is inexhaustible zeal for Dahl’s stories, for young readers in the familiar tales of Matilda, The Twits, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and for a mature audience in the macabre short story collections of Switch Bitch and The Great Automatic Grammatizator. For all those diverse Dahl enthusiasts alike, there are plenty of centenary activities planned even before the author’s birthday.
There’s the Summer Reading Challenge, which is Dahl-themed this year and takes place in libraries all over the UK. Actor Mark Rylance is playing the BFG in the new movie adaptation out on 22 July, which Gardam is visibly excited about. And there are two new books out this year: the Oxford Roald Dahl Dictionary and a book of Dahl’s letters, titled Love From Boy.
But at the heart of this whirlwind of celebrations, the Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre must still engage it’s core audience, and Gardam is aware that it isn’t a typical museum at all.
“Our business model isn’t based on exhibitions, it’s through the activities we provide,” Gardam explains.
These include workshops led by staff members and writers, such as Michael De Souza, the creator of Rastamouse, and the creators of Superdad, among many others. The physical size of the site means there just isn’t space for big exhibition galleries. And the collection, being mostly paper-based, is challenging to display interestingly.
“Roald Dahl wrote on lined yellow legal paper, because he loved yellow, and the collection is based on manuscripts, typed scripts, letters, correspondence, notes for speeches,” Gardam says. “It’s very content-rich but visually quite small and quite slim.”
But one famed object on display in the museum is Dahl’s writing hut. “It’s a place that pulses with power, when you think about all the words and entertainment that have been generated from that scruffy old armchair,” Gardam says.
Quantifiably fun
The museum is certainly a crowd-pleaser, and Gardam reports that 2015-16 was the most successful year it has ever had.
“Over 80,000 people visited, which is awesome, and 12,000 of those were in school groups,” Gardam says. “Our schools programme is basically at capacity.”
But if the museum is so successful, what does Gardam see as his main role? “The phrase that I’ve found that really applies here is ‘managing success’,” he says. “When I arrived there was no crisis, the staff were doing fantastic work, visitor figures were great, so what was there to do? But if you look at any organisation that wants to be excellent, there are always opportunities to make improvements.”
Gardam introduces another phrase he likes: marginal gains. “There might not be one area you can improve by 20%, but there might be 20 things that can improve by 1%. It could be a very practical thing like getting a contactless card machine, which we did recently and has meant the shop queue is quicker, which means we get the valuable income we need to operate, but also that visitors are having a better time because they’re not stuck in a queue. That’s a really perfect example of a marginal gain.”
The museum staff moved offices at the start of this year – their old offices have lift access, so that means Gardam could convert them to public use.
“We’re hoping to fit a third school group in, which would potentially result in 5,000 more kids in our school sessions, which would increase our capacity by 50%.”
Even though life in Great Missenden seems rather peachy, there are plans to evolve the museum. Gardam hints at an adult programme in coming years, and a possible redevelopment of the galleries.
“We’ve got to think creatively to present this wonderful material that is nevertheless quite small and not necessarily with immediate visual impact,” he says.
But who needs visual impact when you have pure imagination? Gardam points to the many sources of Dahl’s inspiration from his museum office window.
“See that Tudor house? That’s the building he was thinking of as Sophie’s ‘norphanage’ in the BFG. And just a bit further on there are two red petrol pumps where Danny, the Champion of the World and his dad live at the service station, and the library you walk past on the way here is where Matilda Wormwood lives.” The museum gives out leaflets for town and country trails taking in all of these sights.
With Cafe Twit full to the rafters with families, kids running wild in the museum, and all the Dahlian hotspots around, Gardam seems to have rather fallen on his feet. “Friends and colleagues lost their nut when I told them what my new job was.”
By continuing to reflect the magic and invention of Dahl’s stories, Gardam and the Roald Dahl Museum should hold the recipe for lasting success.
He then moved to the British Postal Museum as access manager, and then onto the Imperial War Museum as the head of corporate education programmes.
Before becoming the director of the Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre in 2015, he was at the London Transport Museum as programme manager and then the head of live programmes, where he initiated the Young People’s Programme.
A small site in Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire, the museum is run by 10 full-time equivalents on the office staff, and a pool of casual staff to accommodate the seasonal nature of a family-oriented museum.
Visitor figures are about 80,000 a year. The museum has an annual turnover of about £1m.
The museum is supported by the Roald Dahl literary estate, and works with the Roald Dahl Marvellous Children’s Charity.
“I cut my teeth doing education sessions for all ages,” says Gardam, who started as an educational tour guide at the Houses of Parliament, later going on to champion a youth apprenticeship programme at the London Transport Museum.
The Roald Dahl Museum is in Great Missenden, an idyllic little town in Buckinghamshire where the late author lived for 46 years. The man behind classic children’s novels such as James and the Giant Peach and Danny, the Champion of the World would have been 100 years old this year. There is a national celebration to mark this anniversary, and Gardam is clearly excited about all the activities going on.
“We’ve lent the largest set of archive material that we’ve ever loaned to the Southbank Centre in London for their temporary exhibition, The Wundercrump World of Roald Dahl,” Gardam says.
The show transfers to the Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff from 12 August, which makes particular sense because Dahl was born in Cardiff and went to school in Llandaff.
“They’re running an amazing arts festival called City of the Unexpected over the weekend of 17 September, just after Dahl’s actual birthday on the 13 September,” he says.
Gardam is helping to develop these celebrations and is encouraging schools to register and download Roald Dahl party packs from the museum’s website to host their own Dahl-themed parties on the author’s birthday, which happens to be a school day.
Party on
There is inexhaustible zeal for Dahl’s stories, for young readers in the familiar tales of Matilda, The Twits, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and for a mature audience in the macabre short story collections of Switch Bitch and The Great Automatic Grammatizator. For all those diverse Dahl enthusiasts alike, there are plenty of centenary activities planned even before the author’s birthday.
There’s the Summer Reading Challenge, which is Dahl-themed this year and takes place in libraries all over the UK. Actor Mark Rylance is playing the BFG in the new movie adaptation out on 22 July, which Gardam is visibly excited about. And there are two new books out this year: the Oxford Roald Dahl Dictionary and a book of Dahl’s letters, titled Love From Boy.
But at the heart of this whirlwind of celebrations, the Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre must still engage it’s core audience, and Gardam is aware that it isn’t a typical museum at all.
“Our business model isn’t based on exhibitions, it’s through the activities we provide,” Gardam explains.
These include workshops led by staff members and writers, such as Michael De Souza, the creator of Rastamouse, and the creators of Superdad, among many others. The physical size of the site means there just isn’t space for big exhibition galleries. And the collection, being mostly paper-based, is challenging to display interestingly.
“Roald Dahl wrote on lined yellow legal paper, because he loved yellow, and the collection is based on manuscripts, typed scripts, letters, correspondence, notes for speeches,” Gardam says. “It’s very content-rich but visually quite small and quite slim.”
But one famed object on display in the museum is Dahl’s writing hut. “It’s a place that pulses with power, when you think about all the words and entertainment that have been generated from that scruffy old armchair,” Gardam says.
Dahl’s writing hut is a place that pulses with power, when you think about all the words and entertainment that have been generated from that scruffy old armchair."
Quantifiably fun
The museum is certainly a crowd-pleaser, and Gardam reports that 2015-16 was the most successful year it has ever had.
“Over 80,000 people visited, which is awesome, and 12,000 of those were in school groups,” Gardam says. “Our schools programme is basically at capacity.”
But if the museum is so successful, what does Gardam see as his main role? “The phrase that I’ve found that really applies here is ‘managing success’,” he says. “When I arrived there was no crisis, the staff were doing fantastic work, visitor figures were great, so what was there to do? But if you look at any organisation that wants to be excellent, there are always opportunities to make improvements.”
Gardam introduces another phrase he likes: marginal gains. “There might not be one area you can improve by 20%, but there might be 20 things that can improve by 1%. It could be a very practical thing like getting a contactless card machine, which we did recently and has meant the shop queue is quicker, which means we get the valuable income we need to operate, but also that visitors are having a better time because they’re not stuck in a queue. That’s a really perfect example of a marginal gain.”
The museum staff moved offices at the start of this year – their old offices have lift access, so that means Gardam could convert them to public use.
“We’re hoping to fit a third school group in, which would potentially result in 5,000 more kids in our school sessions, which would increase our capacity by 50%.”
Even though life in Great Missenden seems rather peachy, there are plans to evolve the museum. Gardam hints at an adult programme in coming years, and a possible redevelopment of the galleries.
“We’ve got to think creatively to present this wonderful material that is nevertheless quite small and not necessarily with immediate visual impact,” he says.
But who needs visual impact when you have pure imagination? Gardam points to the many sources of Dahl’s inspiration from his museum office window.
“See that Tudor house? That’s the building he was thinking of as Sophie’s ‘norphanage’ in the BFG. And just a bit further on there are two red petrol pumps where Danny, the Champion of the World and his dad live at the service station, and the library you walk past on the way here is where Matilda Wormwood lives.” The museum gives out leaflets for town and country trails taking in all of these sights.
With Cafe Twit full to the rafters with families, kids running wild in the museum, and all the Dahlian hotspots around, Gardam seems to have rather fallen on his feet. “Friends and colleagues lost their nut when I told them what my new job was.”
By continuing to reflect the magic and invention of Dahl’s stories, Gardam and the Roald Dahl Museum should hold the recipe for lasting success.
Steve Gardam at a glance
Steve Gardam studied history at York University. His first job was as an educational tour guide at the Houses of Parliament, before he got a temporary job in the search room at London Metropolitan Archives, where he stayed for six years under various titles. He then moved to the British Postal Museum as access manager, and then onto the Imperial War Museum as the head of corporate education programmes.
Before becoming the director of the Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre in 2015, he was at the London Transport Museum as programme manager and then the head of live programmes, where he initiated the Young People’s Programme.
The Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre at a glance
The Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre opened in 2006. A small site in Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire, the museum is run by 10 full-time equivalents on the office staff, and a pool of casual staff to accommodate the seasonal nature of a family-oriented museum.
Visitor figures are about 80,000 a year. The museum has an annual turnover of about £1m.
The museum is supported by the Roald Dahl literary estate, and works with the Roald Dahl Marvellous Children’s Charity.