And the winner is...

The National Maritime Museum is an inspiration, says Sally Saunders

After months of voting, judging and deliberating, the winner of the Telegraph Family Friendly Museum Award has come to a fitting finale. The six shortlisted museums were chosen from more than 800 nominations. They were then visited by undercover family judges, and after sneaking around and reporting back their findings, a winner has finally been chosen. Meet the team who have scooped the biggest prize in British museums. “Working with children isn’t an add-on for us, it’s at the heart of what we do,” says National Maritime Museum Cornwall director Jonathan Griffin. It is this attitude that has helped the museum win the Telegraph Family Friendly Museum Award at a packed event at the Telegraph offices in London this week. “I rang the team in the office in Cornwall to tell them, and they were all leaping from their desks, cheering down the line,” said education manager Stuart Slade. “This really does mean the world to us, it’s thrilling. “I thought it was actually an industry award, and it’s wonderful to be recognised in your own field, but it’s even more than that. “The previous winners were invited to take part in an event in Europe on the strength of the award. It’s brought in more people to them and more money, and has made a real difference to them. “We are now hoping it will do the same for us, raising our Pushing the boat out: a visitor enjoys the boating lake at the National Maritime Museum Cornwall profile and attracting a whole new audience. We can’t wait to meet them.” The team in Falmouth are ready and waiting as well. The museum only opened 11 years ago but has made a huge splash, being shortlisted for this award last year and winning several other prestigious prizes. So what makes it so special? “We are a young museum but at the beginning, volunteers were placed at the heart of the museum,” says Griffin. “Through the year we have 120 days of free activities, from story-telling to make-and-take, dress up and lots more. Our volunteers give a unique flavour to what we do, and mean we can do a lot more for people than if we were just relying on our staff. “We are a professional organisation with an amateur passion to go the extra mile.” The museum is a treasure trove of anything connected to the sea: from the boat in which Sir Ben Ainslie won gold at the 2012 Olympics to a miniature boating lake to a rescue helicopter. Some of the displays are dramatically suspended in mid-air, while others, such as a life raft and helicopter in the “survival zone”, are completely open. “That is one of the most successful areas of the whole museum,” says Slade. “You have a real helicopter there, that’s what special about it, and the children can climb in it and experience it for themselves, and use it to inspire their imaginations.” It works. The award is judged by families visiting the museums. Vicky Venton visited with six-year-old Jacob and four-year-old Eliza. She says: “The search and rescue exhibition in particular captured all our imaginations. “The helicopter was a big hit, being able to climb inside and explore real lifesaving equipment, then we dressed up as lifeguards and took it in turns to climb on board a quad bike. It was amazing.” The museum is not the first in the town to win the award. Eight years ago, Falmouth Art Gallery won the prize. “We were inspired by the gallery,” Griffin admits. “It was run by a wonderful man called Brian Stewart. “When we started out, anything Brian could do, we wanted to do too. The way he brought children into the gallery and inspired them made us realise that was what we wanted to do. “We have to earn a living, that’s why the whole place is so focused on making it a brilliant experience for visitors. We do what’s in our DNA to satisfy them.” Historian Dan Snow, a patron of Kids in Museums, which runs the award, says: “If museums throughout the country could tell stories of our shared history this well, we’d have a whole generation of young people who’d be museum goers and historians. We’d also have young people who could imagine new and better futures, inspired by the stories of the past.”