“I gained my degree at Reading in 2003 and, aiming to repay the university a little for the rewarding years I had enjoyed as a mature student, I joined the museum when I retired two years ago.
Initially I helped in the Huntley & Palmer archive and then I trained to be a museum tour guide, learning about the intriguing exhibits – the pole lathe, seed drills and threshing machine – and engaging with visitors from all over the world.
For family tours and our annual village fete in the museum garden, the team appears as characters to explain aspects of past lives to the children. I have variously been the Victorian chambermaid or the miller’s wife.
However, our most ambitious project to date has been the re-enactment of the Kent Swing Riots of 1830, a forgotten episode of rural unrest that resulted in the hanging of one local man and the deportation to Australia of many men from Berkshire villages.
I continue to volunteer in the museum offices, currently key-wording historic photographs and transcribing the Chatto & Windus letters archive to computer.
For me, volunteering at the museum provides friendship, the stimulation of continued learning and a great deal of pleasure.”
Initially I helped in the Huntley & Palmer archive and then I trained to be a museum tour guide, learning about the intriguing exhibits – the pole lathe, seed drills and threshing machine – and engaging with visitors from all over the world.
For family tours and our annual village fete in the museum garden, the team appears as characters to explain aspects of past lives to the children. I have variously been the Victorian chambermaid or the miller’s wife.
However, our most ambitious project to date has been the re-enactment of the Kent Swing Riots of 1830, a forgotten episode of rural unrest that resulted in the hanging of one local man and the deportation to Australia of many men from Berkshire villages.
I continue to volunteer in the museum offices, currently key-wording historic photographs and transcribing the Chatto & Windus letters archive to computer.
For me, volunteering at the museum provides friendship, the stimulation of continued learning and a great deal of pleasure.”
