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History: it's what we can remember
Feb. 17th, 2013 10:42 pmFor the first time this year, we spent the day at Beamish Museum. The plan was for a day of gentle walking, with plenty of places to stop and sit, and find something to eat, with a secret motive of buying an emergency birthday card at their shop. Plans being what they are, we were thwarted in our attempts to buy a card, and distracted from the walking. The distraction was fun, though: we got to look round the museum's store.
I remember visiting the museum in the very early days, and seeing a display in Beamish Hall (then the centre of the museum, now the adjacent hotel) of objects awaiting the development of the buildings in which they would find their homes. A room full of typewriters had a notice: "Please, no more typewriters!" We commented on this to the member of staff showing us round, who nodded and said: "And sewing machines..." Now the stores are in rolling stacks which shift to reveal books, or Sunderland lustre pottery, or musical instruments (brass and Northumbrian pipes and a lithophone - a set of slabs of what looked like slate, and a hammer), or dolls' houses or phrenologists' heads... There were carefully rolled and swaddled quilts and banners, and sanitary ware and rocking horses, and of course every wall was a mosaic of enamel advertising signs.
We had arrived in the middle of the Great Donate: it's always possible to arrange to visit the store, but we had been able to walk in because the museum is actively collecting objects - specifically, they are extending their collection throughout the twentieth century. They have grand ambitions for another town behind the present, 1910 town, representing life in the 1950s - and after that, it'll be time to start collecting the 1980s. The idea that things I remember, things I grew up with, are collectable makes me come over all Three Men in a Boat:
Even now, when most of Beamish's presentation represents life in 1910, much of its popular appeal is precisely that it acts as a spur to reminiscence: grandparents bring their grandchildren, and tell them that yes, things really did use to be like this, why, even when I was your age... So it makes sense to bring the collection forward, to keep it within the reach of today's grandparents. A project on Category D villages was a disappointment, all activities for children and no real explanation of what happened and why - but work on the 1950s has barely started. A taste of cinder toffee at the sweet shop, and the sight of the woman who made it breaking up a 15 pound slab of the stuff, soon stopped me complaining.
On Friday we'd been at the Sage for a One Night in Gateshead concert with the Wilson family, and I had many intelligent things to say about it; it didn't really have any thematic parallels with the above unless your mind is prone to make that sort of pattern (which mine is), it was just an evening of good music. But I've run out of steam, and am going to bed.
I remember visiting the museum in the very early days, and seeing a display in Beamish Hall (then the centre of the museum, now the adjacent hotel) of objects awaiting the development of the buildings in which they would find their homes. A room full of typewriters had a notice: "Please, no more typewriters!" We commented on this to the member of staff showing us round, who nodded and said: "And sewing machines..." Now the stores are in rolling stacks which shift to reveal books, or Sunderland lustre pottery, or musical instruments (brass and Northumbrian pipes and a lithophone - a set of slabs of what looked like slate, and a hammer), or dolls' houses or phrenologists' heads... There were carefully rolled and swaddled quilts and banners, and sanitary ware and rocking horses, and of course every wall was a mosaic of enamel advertising signs.We had arrived in the middle of the Great Donate: it's always possible to arrange to visit the store, but we had been able to walk in because the museum is actively collecting objects - specifically, they are extending their collection throughout the twentieth century. They have grand ambitions for another town behind the present, 1910 town, representing life in the 1950s - and after that, it'll be time to start collecting the 1980s. The idea that things I remember, things I grew up with, are collectable makes me come over all Three Men in a Boat:
Will it be the same in the future? Will the prized treasures of to-day always be the cheap trifles of the day before? Will rows of our willow-pattern dinner-plates be ranged above the chimneypieces of the great in the years 2000 and odd? Will the white cups with the gold rim and the beautiful gold flower inside (species unknown), that our Sarah Janes now break in sheer light-heartedness of spirit, be carefully mended, and stood upon a bracket, and dusted only by the lady of the house?(Thank you, Project Gutenberg!) And yes, of course they will.
Even now, when most of Beamish's presentation represents life in 1910, much of its popular appeal is precisely that it acts as a spur to reminiscence: grandparents bring their grandchildren, and tell them that yes, things really did use to be like this, why, even when I was your age... So it makes sense to bring the collection forward, to keep it within the reach of today's grandparents. A project on Category D villages was a disappointment, all activities for children and no real explanation of what happened and why - but work on the 1950s has barely started. A taste of cinder toffee at the sweet shop, and the sight of the woman who made it breaking up a 15 pound slab of the stuff, soon stopped me complaining.
On Friday we'd been at the Sage for a One Night in Gateshead concert with the Wilson family, and I had many intelligent things to say about it; it didn't really have any thematic parallels with the above unless your mind is prone to make that sort of pattern (which mine is), it was just an evening of good music. But I've run out of steam, and am going to bed.
