Horror of trenches emerges from attic
The Green Howards Museum is looking forward to telling new stories about life on the front line after taking delivery of some fascinating heirlooms. Phil Penfold reports. Pictures by James Hardisty.
MOST museums across the UK are focused on the past. But one of Yorkshire’s best-loved collections specifically channels its treasure trove of artefacts into informing visitors of today, and attracting those of the future. The Green Howards Museum is right in the centre of historic Richmond, and – typically of nearly all museums and galleries around the world – it has more in its capacious storage spaces than it has on public view. There simply isn’t the room to display everything. And that’s why the Green Howards team are so keen to keep on constantly creating new exhibitions so that as much as can be appreciated will, in due time, get its own place in the spotlight.
But it’s also a matter of keeping up – for in the past year alone there have been no fewer than 39 major donations from the public, and they add up to over 350 items.
A single one of them filled a gap in the museum’s collection that revealed much about how the military mind worked, back in the days of National Service, just after the Second World War. A woman from Northallerton contacted Zoe Utley, the Barnsley-born head of collections, and wondered if she would like to see some papers that had been preserved in a drawer for several decades.
Zoe says: “She opened up a small packet. I was delighted to see that these were full official instructions from the Army to their newest soldier, telling him how to get from his home to the then Richmond Barracks, to report for training. Bus information, rail information, the whole deal. There was no googling for him back then, there it all was, in black and white. And it is in perfect condition, a wonderful slice of social history.”
Zoe has spent most of her working life at the Green Howards, joining the museum in 2016 after completing a degree in History and Music, and then her Masters in Museum Studies. “Never, ever believe that something is mundane or commonplace,” she cautions. “There is always a story behind every piece of paper, photograph, medal, painting, piece of silver, object. Everything tells us something