It’s been some time since our last blog in July, I can’t quite believe we’re already nearing the end of September. We had a great Summer Holiday here at the Museum, with loads of families taking part in our Ace Activity trails and craft activities. You kept us very busy!
At the end of August we reached the 1980s in our Through the Decades weekends. We were lucky enough to have partnered up with the BBC’s Domesday Reloaded project for this weekend and had an absolutely brilliant time. If you weren’t here you missed our 1980s ‘Bad’ Fashion show, a live (and somewhat amazing) performance from Coventry’s Kombat Breakers, 80s fancy dress, karaoke – and not to forget, THE Audi Quattro from TV series Ashes to Ashes on Millennium Place. Amongst all the 80s fun we even found a couple of people who managed to solve the Rubik’s Cube! We were really pleased with how the weekend went and it certainly looked like all of our visitors had lots of fun.
Behind the scenes over the summer we’ve been working hard at completing our brand new Education Pack, which explains all the different sessions we offer for schools visiting the Museum. We’re really pleased with how it looks and excited about the new sessions we’ve added. One such session is our new Evacuee Experience. We tried it out for the first time on a school group a couple of weeks ago and were very happy with how it went. You can download our new Education Pack on the website.
The new Education Pack is one of a series of changes and updates we’ll be making to the Learning Department at the Museum over the coming months. Watch this space for news of exciting updates and additions to our schools and family programs.
Krissy and I recently attended a really great training day at the ThinkTank in Birmingham, all about working with, and providing for, families in museums. We were both really inspired and came away with a whole host of ideas of how we can improve the Museum for families. We’re working hard to put some of our ideas into practice, so look out for changes over the next month or two and let us know what you think. If anyone has any suggestions of what would make the Museum better for you and your family please feel free to let us know.
As well as getting back into the swing of things with a very busy schedule of visiting schools, we’re also preparing for October half term (which seems to be approaching scarily fast!) This half term our activities and trails will be themed to our forthcoming Wheels & Waves exhibition, which opens on 20th October. So grab your board shorts and come on down!
Ooh – and we’ve also now got our own Coventry Transport Museum Learning Twitter account - please follow us @CTMLearning!
Enjoy autumn everyone - Bye for now x
Tuesday, 27 September 2011
Monday, 26 September 2011
If walls could tell a story...
It’s easy to get distracted in the archive of Coventry Transport Museum. Recently, on dealing with a University enquiry regarding sports and social activities of motor factory workers, I stumbled across an interesting advert taken from a 1966 issue of Modern Motoring & Travel.
The advert was submitted by a Coventry printing firm called ‘Edwards’ at Quinton Road, yet it was the building they were situated in that interested me. Partly recognisable today as an Ibis Hotel, the original building formed the west section of Parkside, an area located quite central to Coventry with a history of cycle and motor companies to have been occupants there over the decades. These included the likes of Velox, Iden, Deasy, Siddeley-Deasy, Armstrong-Siddeley and Rolls-Royce, now sadly all gone and Parkside today has been regenerated into a Coventry University Technology Park.
The building in the advert was most famously occupied by the Swift Company, originated in the late 1860s as the Coventry Machinists as cycle makers at nearby Cheylesmore. Also being part occupied by chocolate manufacturers during the early 1900s, thousands of ‘Swift’ cycles, motorcycles and cars were made here until the company closed around 1931. Extremely fortunate to have survived the air-raids of the Second World War, this image shows the factory very well intact, and clearly before the central ring-road was completed in 1974. The memorial seen in an Island here, still exists today but was moved to the island between Ringway St. Patricks and Ringway St. Johns.
Damien Kimberley - Curator, Research & Information
The advert was submitted by a Coventry printing firm called ‘Edwards’ at Quinton Road, yet it was the building they were situated in that interested me. Partly recognisable today as an Ibis Hotel, the original building formed the west section of Parkside, an area located quite central to Coventry with a history of cycle and motor companies to have been occupants there over the decades. These included the likes of Velox, Iden, Deasy, Siddeley-Deasy, Armstrong-Siddeley and Rolls-Royce, now sadly all gone and Parkside today has been regenerated into a Coventry University Technology Park.
The building in the advert was most famously occupied by the Swift Company, originated in the late 1860s as the Coventry Machinists as cycle makers at nearby Cheylesmore. Also being part occupied by chocolate manufacturers during the early 1900s, thousands of ‘Swift’ cycles, motorcycles and cars were made here until the company closed around 1931. Extremely fortunate to have survived the air-raids of the Second World War, this image shows the factory very well intact, and clearly before the central ring-road was completed in 1974. The memorial seen in an Island here, still exists today but was moved to the island between Ringway St. Patricks and Ringway St. Johns.
Damien Kimberley - Curator, Research & Information
Thursday, 15 September 2011
Diary of an Archive Intern
Hello everyone! My name is Daniela and unfortunately I’m writing to say goodbye to museum staff and share with all of you my experience in the archive with the curatorial folks.
Just a quick background on myself. I’m from Italy where I graduated in Science and Technology applied to Cultural Heritage.
You would say..what’s that? I know..it’s not easy to understand that somebody has to analyse chemical/physical/geological samples before starting to restore a piece of our past in order to understand the reasons for the deterioration. However, my passion for museum field started when I attended a course in Museology. Then I started to search for more exciting courses arould the world. Finally, I found the best Masters course in England (at least they say it is), Museum Studies at the Univeristy of Leicester.
Oops, I realised late that I couldn’t speak English at all! So, I decided to leave Italy a few months after my graduation, fly to England and start to learn some english words. And here I am, in the last part of the Masters course, in the Coventry Transport Museum for the work placement.
Initially, I decided to work in the archive because I think it would be like opening a magic window on our past. Yes, it’s magic because everytime I meet an object a new story appears in front of me ready to be uncovered. Indeed, you are able to discover the fascinating stories related to each object, in special way working in this archive I learnt many things about Coventry, as the birthplace of the British cycle and motor industry. As you can read on the museum website, the Museum’s archive is truly a great resource for anyone interested in the history of Coventry’s transport industry and the British transport industry in general.
One of the mini-projects I did was to re-organize the holding bay in order to clear space for new objects coming in. I met so many objects enabling me to understand who were behind some cycle and motor companies from the past Coventry. In fact, I found boxes full of bizarre and fantastic objects I have never seen before, such as old driving licenses, small parts of old cars, old plates, cycle lamps, maps and helmets just to mention a few of them.
Figure 1: some objects from the archive
For instance, I found an old black and white photograph showing a couple from Coventry on their tandem. The presenting letter written from their daughter was very touching. It tells how they coped in the World War II and their love for their tandem. That is absolutelly amazing, through an object you are able to know stories of people and time so far from you. It’s a completely dusty job but it’s definitely rewarding.
However, working in the archive is not so easy as it looks in terms of practical issues. In fact, most of the work in the archive are carried out by volunteers who are full of goodwill. I worked on many different mini-projects. I’ve unpacked boxes full of books (every day there are new objects coming in) and catalogued sales brochures, books, manuals, small objects and even the Thrust 2 (the fastest car in the world!) material purchased from J. Ackroyd (have a look to the Facebook page, they are our objects of the month!). You know my background is not in museum field but my supervisor, Megan, has been very patient and kind to teach me everything how to register an object from paperworks to digital database, mark an object and all procedures to entry an item in the museum.
Figure 2: the register and the special archive pen
Figure 3: technical manual shelves inside the archive
Figure 4: rolls aisle inside the archive
Overall it has been my first experience in a museum and i do really enjoy it! I have to thank all the curatorial team that have been so supportive with me. Now, I would like to carry on my new interest and look for a job!
Goodbye!
Oops i forgot to say one little thing about the archive world: it’s cold! So if you would like to do this job you have to wear a heavy jumper to keep you warm!!
Find out more about the Coventry Transport Museum archive.
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