by Milly Newman
A big thank you to all volunteers who kindly responded to our plea at the Volunteer Review meeting for ideas of your favourite objects in the museum. These are currently being used to create a great new trail around the building.
MAIN HALL
Sush!
On my first visit to the Museum I saw Sush and my first was ‘Wow, I’d love to own her’. Now I’m a volunteer and I still think the same when I see her.
She’s beautifully proportioned, rather cute, and obviously well-made. But most of all I imagine that single cylinder engine putt-putt-putting as Sush potters round the harbour. Of course the sun is shining, the picnic basket is loaded, my Panama hat is keeping the sun off, and all is right with the world.
Colin McLaren
Waterlily Thames Steam Launch
Sometimes in a lull between visitors I stand and imagine Waterlily drifting down the Thames on a beautiful summer’s day. The beautiful ladies in their pretty summer dresses with be-ribboned hats, relaxing beneath their parasols. They are attended by moustachioed gentlemen in their striped blazers and straw boaters. All sipping tea from delicate china cups and dipping into the picnic hampers.
Dawn Eden
THE HOLD
Light House Keepers’ Kitchen
This wonderful space gives a real feel for what life was once like inside a light house, when they were manned. It provides a wonderful glimpse into history, especially by being so open and hands on instead of having a roped barrier. It’s a lovely family exhibit that stirs the imagination: companionship, isolation, claustrophobia and service.
Dawn Eden
THE TOWER
Lookout
As the lift doors open you see the best in Falmouth. There is the living town dominated by the Docks, moored yachts and often the super-yachts from Pendennis Shipyard. You take this all in for a few minutes and then see the screen. It looks a bit like a computer game but you read the information, tap out a view, move to longer range and there you have the ships at sea, live: who they are, where they are going, how big they are, exactly where they are and the course they are taking. And it is live; they are there now. You really feel that you are in control.
John Fortey
Old Fashioned Diving Suit
This diving suit makes you appreciate how far modern technology has advanced and how difficult diving must have been in the past. It also reminds me of a Scooby Doo film. Dressed as a diver in a suit like this would often appear as one of the monsters in the show.
Dawn Eden
CORNISH QUAYSIDE
Lewis Billing’s Fisherman’s Loft
This reminds me of my childhood holidays spent at Gwithian. Although the chalets were holiday lets there was one permanent resident, a Mr Kirby, whose garage looked just like this exhibit. As children we would take along our 6d (21/2p), get a length of cat gut and a fish hook (no Health & Safety in those days – you learnt the hard way) and then go down on to the beach and go fishing for tiddlers in the rock pools. He was wonderful with us children and always greeted us as if he had nothing else to do but supply our needs. I doubt if he ever got rich from the takings!
Julie Bennie
CORNWALL AND THE SEA
Jane Slade
Jane Slade transports me back in time to the boatyard at Polruan in the days of sail. It was the only yard at that time owned, and run, by a woman. It triggered Daphne du Maurier’s first book ‘The Loving Spirit’. This picture just makes my mind wander around other memories: the hard life at sea, the people of Cornwall and Jane Slade herself.
Pauline Fortey
King Harry Diorama
We are in a recession now and yet there is only a handful of ships laid-up on King Harry’s Reach on the River Fal. This model shows that back in [Date] there were 24 ships laid up waiting for orders. Some of these ships went back to sailing round the world, others would have been sold to be broken up for scrap. Don’t miss a trip across the ferry to see today’s ships.
Stella Harvey
FALMOUTH GALLERY
Windsor Castle fight
I love the story behind this painting. Poor William was only 25 but had already been a prisoner of war four times having been over-powered three times by the French and once by Spanish privateers. ‘Not again. Not this time’ he’s thinking as he and his crew fight off the French yet again. Although out-numbered 86 to 28, William and his men fought bravely. They killed 28 of the French privateers and didn’t lose one man. On their return to Falmouth William was awarded £200. He sadly died aged 47 completely worn out by the rigours of the service.
Stella Harvey
NAV STATION
Sir Robin’s Radio
As I phone my friends on my mobile phone, I often think of this massive radio. To imagine this being the only means of communication – something so large. And imagine being out of contact with any other human being for over [100 days] when it failed. Today I can text, talk, and use the internet wherever I am in the world. Then, Sir Robin was alone; really alone. And it that was when I was a teenager. What a change in my lifetime.
Gallery Volunteer
BOATBUILDING
The Dugout Canoe
This dugout always amuses me. I imagine the telephone conversation between the museum and the boat-builder: ‘You want what: a dugout? Would a little dinghy not suit you better? Oh, you want it half-built. And I suppose you want me to leave the bark on one end. OK, but it’ll never float you know and the Harbourmaster will never let you use it.’ It might not have taken a modern boat-builder long to make this but imagine the hours that must have gone into an original dugout: all that burning and chopping with primitive tools where one false move could have created a hole and ruined the boat.
Gallery Volunteer
FLOTILLA
Jangarda
Is it a boat? Is it a raft? And why that enormous sail and what looks like a seat to sit upon? This is no normal boat and I long to visit Brazil to see a modern one in action: to see how they are used, to sail with the fishermen, to understand they way of life. Not as a tourist on a packaged tour but as a member of the community, experiencing their way of life for real.
Gallery Volunteer
