Museum Musings

Notes from Front of House - by Alyson

It is an exciting time to be starting my new post at Front of House; there is a great deal to enjoy, from the colourful stories retold by the local characters, to working with new objects and exhibitions. 

Thoughts on the new exhibition flit through my head on the way to work. The Call to Arms posters are framed and displayed and I am wondering where in Wakefield they would have originally been displayed?  

A Call To Arms - exhibition at Wakefield Museum

Helping the museum conservator clean the WWI cap and arm band raised two questions: who did they belong to, and did they survive the war? We will need to dig around to put an answer to those questions. 

So many survived the war, but developed what we now know to be Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The Mental Health display in the building’s atrium has some information on that, but how did families cope with it? This will have been something every community must have faced when their loved ones returned home.

I am sure that there are stories out in Wakefield that could shed a more poignant light onto the finds that we have on display throughout the museum. It certainly opened up stories for my husband, who came in to see the fragment of shell casing that bombed Thornes Road in WW2 and narrowly missed his Mum sheltering under the table. 

WW2 case in the main gallery

The posters will be changing over again in May and another set of newly conserved posters will be on display. The conservators have done a super job repairing the small tears, removing sellotape and cleaning away the surface dirt that will always accumulate on objects. The result has enabled the exhibition team to create a visually stunning exhibition that I can always find 'that something extra' to add to my day.