St Peter’s Probus October meeting report

ON OCTOBER 11, St Peter’s Probus held its monthly meeting at the Ivy Bush Royal Hotel, Carmarthen.

The vice-chairman Malcolm opened the meeting at 10am and took the reports from the club’s officers. Secretary Roger P said there had been no correspondence to report, and that the minutes of the last meeting had been emailed to members. Treasurer Martin reported there were no bills outstanding and the club had a healthy bank balance. Trailblazer outings – Roger D reported that no trip had been arranged for October but would make bookings with the Xcel bowling rink for November. Bowls – Eric reported that there were only four regular players.

It was also reported that the club had bought a new radio headset microphone that worked very well but a new handheld radio microphone only had a range of about three metres, which was inadequate, and was to be returned for a refund. The vice-chairman introduced speaker Chris Delaney, who spoke about museums.

Chris began his talk by explaining that before retiring he was museums curator and heritage manager for Carmarthenshire

Council and had held a similar post with Dyfed County Council.

Chris said that in his role as museums curator he had responsibility for Carmarthen Museum at Abergwili, Llanelli’s Park Howard Museum, the Museum of Speed at Pendine and the Kidwelly Quay Museum plus several other smaller museums in the county.

Chis said he had retired in 2008 when in his late 50s and had looked around for something constructive to do. He started a consultancy business for organisations wanting to develop and safeguard historical artifacts and records. He is now involved with projects across the country on a wide range of themes from coal mines to listed buildings and factories, besides conventional museums. One factory was the tinplate works in Llanelli which was instrumental in providing the storage method for food in cans that helped provision the Scott Antarctic expeditions.

Of the many interesting slides, Chris had showed the working conditions in the tinplate factories.

Chris said he had also worked with Bangor University on the history of ships wrecked around the coast of Wales where it was found they had a direct relevance to modern offshore wind turbines.

There had been a problem of how to assess the tidal erosion over many years around fixed structures on the seabed as this could destabilise the foundations of wind turbines and other structures. By studying the erosion patterns around old shipwrecks, the expected effects can be quantified and measured. Associated with the histories of the ships sunk in the First and Second World Wars are records showing the score rating of the U-boats and their captains as if it were some sort of sporting engagement.

Another project Chris was involved with that was one of the few gains from the Covid lockdown was a revival of verbal history by storytelling. Museum lockdown staff and others were given tuition in storytelling so they could visit schools and clubs and so help to keep Welsh verbal history alive.

Chris’ talk was a reminder that our history is a large part of what defines us all in this very interesting part of Wales. Chris was most warmly thanked for a fascinating talk and joined members for an excellent lunch at the hotel.