HERITAGE CONSERVATION

Volunteers help in local museums by caring for collections, recording details of documents and objects.

More of their work is described in the report about the Conservation Day at Windlesham on 23 March 2007 to be found HERE.

Heritage Volunteers May 2010

Army Medical Services Museum Collection

Farnham DFAS has had teams of heritage volunteers curating the medal collection of the Army Medical Services Museum at Mytchett for nearly twenty years.

The Museum has a small and busy permanent staff. Without FarnhamDFAS’s help they would by their own admission fall badly behind on their medals work. Even so, like painting the Forth Bridge, the end is never in sight.  This is largely because the Museum, as its title implies, now covers several corps with health connection: the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC), whose museum it originally was, the Royal Army Dental Corps, the Queen Alexandra’s Royal Army Nursing Corps (QARANC) and the Royal Army Veterinary Corps.   That recent expansion has, not surprisingly, resulted in there being more medals to deal with.   Also the bringing together of four existing museums, each with its own display policy and practice, has caused standardisation problems; though these have by now been mainly solved.

The FarnhamDFAS team’s work consists, firstly, of fitting recently donated groups of medals on to empty display boards on a trial basis. Each group comprises the medals, sometimes a photograph, of an individual retired or deceased member of the corps concerned, of any rank from private to general. The criteria for the layout, which can conflict, are aesthetic balance and militarily correct ordering.& Next, each medal is if necessary and it usually is, cleaned and re-ribboned. Finally the refurbished medals are fixed to the boards, great care being taken over alignment and spacing. Each board is devoted to one corps only. The completed boards are then handed back to the museum’s staff for display.

On average, the team of three people completes three to four boards per year. One board is normally finished before the next one is started, but occasionally there is overlap or interruption because of an unforeseen special project.

All this may give the impression that the work is repetitive. In fact however it is full of interest, not least because behind every medal there is a human story, often involving an act of gallantry on the battlefield.

As the most frequent reason for medals being donated is the death of the holder, it follows that medals for recent conflicts – the Falklands war and thereafter- seldom appear. However, there are exceptions.  Recently an Iraq campaign medal awarded to a still-serving RAMC sergeant was donated by the NCO himself.  He had been posted from one unit to another half way through the short war and, unusually, had been awarded two identical campaign medals. He felt he needed only one!

From time to time an unrecognisable medal comes to light. It may be a campaign medal for a long-forgotten little war on the fringe of the empire in the 19th century, or perhaps a foreign decoration.   Time then has to be spent identifying the medal so that it can take its proper place on the board.

Certain orders or their ribbons present a challenge because their visually pleasing shape is difficult to fix securely to the board, requiring ingenuity by the team. An example of this is the Royal Red Cross (awarded for special devotion in nursing the wounded) which has a ribbon tied in a bow and of which there was a flood following the merger with the QARANC museum.  Bars of gallantry awards can be another cause of difficulty when re-ribboning.

So interest is maintained and is heightened by the privilege of working in a lively and active ambience, alongside a dedicated, congenial and helpful curator and his staff.

The Army Medical Services Museum is open to the public. It has audio guides and is quite small. A recent major reconstruction has resulted in a well laid out museum with imaginative, realistic displays and much else of historical interest. A visit is strongly recommended.

Written by Col. R Norton

Heritage Volunteers November 2008

Training Day November 12th

The group of volunteers at the Farnham Museum recently spent an interesting day with conservator Zenzie Tinker learning how to conserve the many and varied hats owned by the museum.

The hats are of a varied nature and of different ages  One is covered in feathers, another (circa 1800) made of a delicate lace; others are made of straw. All need care, and the volunteers are making supports  which will mean that the hats can be stored and displayed safely.

This was a day-long  course. During the morning, Zenzie appraised work done previously and suggested possible improvements. In the afternoon they looked at hats to be conserved and Zenzie suggested ways of doing this.

 

The group have already done some work for the Museum at Shere and are now ready to progress to the more complicated hats at Farnham. This involves making a card base, padded with wadding and covered with a sympathetic fabric so that the hats, whilst held in shape, are not put under any stress. Our team are very skilful!

This training day was held in the newly opened and very pleasant Garden room at the Farnham Museum, this will provide a good working environment for the team and we wish them well.

 

Heritage Volunteers Meeting 13th November

A meeting of Heritage Volunteers from the West Surrey Area was held in the Garden Room at Farnham Museum. This is a new facility which opened recently and should prove to be a useful asset to the town.

The meeting was chaired by Denise Topolski who is our Area Chairwoman.

Ann Jones (Curator of the Museum) gave us a short history of Farnham museum and its contents  and talked of work done previously by our volunteers.

A talk was given by Caroline Egan (Heritage Volunteers National Chairwoman) all about finding and running projects. This showed up the variety of work that can be tackled and the skills that so many volunteers have.

At lunchtime we were given a guided tour by Ann around the fascinating costume store. The costumes were all in covers and on hangers especially made for them by our team – making one realises that many hours of work have been put into them by FDFAS volunteers.

After lunch we were able to chat to the other groups and hear about their work.

copy and pictures by Mary Brindley