My choice is a magazine because it represents the earliest memory I have of wanting to work in the heritage sector. Dinosaurs! launched in 1992, when I was five years old. I was already running through the Natural History Museum naming all the dinosaurs, so the moment I saw this magazine – with its T-rex-shaped 3D glasses stuck to the front – I was sold.
I think I owned nearly every issue and built the “glow in the dark” skeleton that you got a new piece of with each issue. At the back of the magazine there was an “ask the expert” section with David Norman of the University of Cambridge, to whom you could send in your dinosaur questions. In one issue someone asked something along the lines of: “What do you need to become a palaeontologist?” The answer involved wearing a hard hat and boots, and having a brush and trowel. I promptly assembled the required items and set about digging up the garden. My mum wasn’t too pleased, but wearing boots and wielding a trowel represented the formation of an achievable goal to dig up old stuff for a living.
My career followed a slightly different path: I studied archaeology, then moved into engagement roles in museums. But that initial spark of it being a career option is something I credit to Dinosaurs! magazine, despite its wonky, inaccurate dinosaur art.
Joe Sullivan is the London partnerships manager at the Natural History Museum, London
