After over 2 years’ worth of networking, negotiating, drafting, meetings, banging of heads the refurb for the Cranleigh Cottage Hospital has started. This was the UKs first ever cottage hospital pioneered by Doctor Napper. All thanks to a large Lottery Heritage grant. I am going into volunteer coordinator mode this month to help new researchers. Meanwhile…I might have another part-time job….
That was a bizarre year from a work point of view. For the first 8 months no work, except being ghosted several times by potential heritage employers (this is the state of empathy-less HR, such a big problem). To keep my moral up I discovered swimming. I also dabbled in creative writing and found I…
New experiment in my face-to-face talks. Using props like these two. A modern plywood plant press and a late Victorian tinplate vasculum (which I did a bit of paint DIY during the hot summer). The best bit is to allow the audience to feel these objects to understand what a planthunter carried or their local…
As a researcher I sometimes get ambushed by voices from the past. This happened to me on my visit to the Mass Observation papers at the Keep archive in Sussex. This is part of research for an exhibition for the Royal College of Physicians. Thanks to anonymous observers I heard 1940s vocal working-class opinions about…
Thanks to the amazing Gardens Trust a summary of my four year research surrounding botanist and mountain climber Miss Stafford can be found at their new history hub. Miss Dora Stafford – The Gardens Trust