‘Hundred day volunteers’ are trained up for the First World War Centenary at IWM London

OTHER FEATURES INSIDE: VOLUNTEER Step back in time – a visit to Stow Maries NEWSLETTER Centenary champion volunteers at IWM North Memorials interest taken back down under Volunteer services team support D-Day weekend event on board HMS Belfast ISSUE 23 – SUMMER 2014 Churchill War Rooms helps to train our growing interaction team Trip to Bunker and RAF Museum London VOLUNTEER PROGRAMME NEWS IWM DUXFORD NEWS

WELCOME TO ISSUE 23 OF THE STEP BACK IN TIME IWM VOLUNTEER NEWSLETTER – A VISIT TO STOW By Jim Hutchinson Volunteer Programme Manager, IWM’s London branches MARIES By Nicola Hughes, Volunteer The excitement has been building as IWM London got ready Co-ordinator, IWM Duxford to re-open its doors on 19 July, and a number of volunteer- supported or volunteer-delivered initiatives went into On a very windy March day, a team of intrepid IWM public view for the first time. Behind the scenes some Duxford volunteers hopped onto a coach and headed Student Volunteers have been helping with aspects of into deepest Essex, near Maldon, to visit Stow Maries the primary research needed to inform our new (www.stowmaries.com). This Aerodrome was built by exhibitions; other volunteers have helped with the the RAF towards the end of the First World War; what conservation of some of the many exhibits which makes it unique and fascinating is the fact that it was will feature in the regenerated galleries and further abandoned in 1919 and, unlike Duxford, not used again. teams of volunteers have been trained up to What remains is a fascinating collection of First World War assist with both the general visitor welcome and buildings, which are being restored by a team of interaction services focused around purpose- enthusiastic volunteers. built trollies funded by the Clore Foundation. At IWM Duxford and IWM North too, volunteers have been contributing towards First World War Centenary initiatives in addition to helping both branches maintain a wide range of support services to IWM visitors and staff members. At our last count, for the January to March 2014 period, some 1,049 volunteers had collectively donated 4,554 days of effort on behalf of IWM. As with earlier publications, Issue 23 offers insights into the volunteers involved, and the volunteer projects across IWM branches where some of these days were donated. This issue again includes a mix of articles focusing both on more recent programme developments and other more established parts of our volunteer scene.

Enjoy the read. Nicola (fourth from lef t) and some of the IWM Duxford volunteers at Stow Maries

Cover: Kitted out and ready The face of our driver was a picture when he saw the narrow lane that he had to to go! New Centenary negotiate the large 53 seat coach down but, for us at least, it added to the experience Support Volunteers at of discovery. As soon as we stepped off the coach and were hit with the obligatory IWM London (from left gusts of strong, cold ‘airfield’ wind, which we are all so used to at IWM Duxford, we were to right) Rob Wilson, transported back in time and engulfed in the atmospheric surroundings of the lovely low Maria Bell, Sue Marguet, Paul Treacy and Carol brick buildings. Mulholland at their role After a well needed cuppa in the wonderfully restored Airman’s Mess hall we watched a training session on Friday 11 July. For full presentation about the history of the site and were split into groups for a tour of the story see page 7. grounds by their volunteers. We were able to have a nose around the temporary hangars, abandoned buildings and spent hours immersing ourselves in the airfield’s wonderful history. This place is a ‘must see’ for anyone interested in history, especially in this centenary year. 2 IWM DUXFORD NEWS

MY ROAD TO BECOMING A VOLUNTEER

By Alan Thompson , Volunteer, IWM Duxford

My road to becoming a volunteer at IWM Duxford All good things come to an end, the parade was began in the summer of 2005. I was, at that time, a over and we began ferrying the BMWs out to courier for DHL International and I had just left a Dartford – all 7,000 of them! I had three glorious delivery in the small hamlet of Thorpe Mourieux, about weeks and met all sorts of people from all over the 10 miles from Bury St Edmunds. The radio was on and world including a number of Paralympians, complete I was listening to the announcement regarding the with Gold Medals. 2012 Olympics. London was, of course, the winner. That evening after dinner I sat down at my computer I had said to my wife that after I retired and had and filled in the application form to be a volunteer for done all the usual things, decorated the whole the games. I hit ‘send’ and apart from the odd email house, worked on my allotment and on the garden over the next few years I waited, hoping that my at home, I would like to do something extra with my application to volunteer at the beach volleyball games time. I found I was missing the day-to-day contact would be accepted! with people outside the family. I needed that stimulation I got from meeting people on a daily Finally, a few years later and after an interview, I was basis as there are only so many places you can drive offered a position as a driver at the Paralympics. I had a to, so many times you can go shopping. I needed to number of training sessions in a BMW series 3 and was find something that would take me out and about. very glad to find out that its special Sat Nav had the So I sat and thought about where I might find that venues pre-loaded so I didn’t need to worry about challenge. getting lost. I sat back and waited for my first shift. I had, in my time in retail, worked at IWM Duxford as During my first shift I was sent to Heathrow airport to one of the first traders at the air shows that Duxford pick up the Deputy Leader of the Canadian team, Aviation Society, together with the museum, although it turned out there were three members organised 40 years ago. I thought that it would be of the Canadian team, with their luggage and only nice to revive my association with IWM Duxford so I just enough room in the car. Over the next three wrote in 2012 and was invited over for a chat and a weeks I met Americans, Irish, Swedish, Germans, look round. Niki Hughes, the museum’s Volunteer Italians, English, South Africans plus many many Co-ordinator, took me and a number of other other wonderful people, including the Hong Kong potential volunteers around the various workshops Minister for Sport! The press were beginning to get and exhibitions. The Land Warfare exhibition lads hold of the story that the Games Makers, as we were were most welcoming and at the subsequent known, were doing a great job; just walking into the interview I was offered a place on the visitor Olympic Park through the Westfield Centre information desk. Eight months down the line I am at Stratford even at 7am in the having a great time. The questions you are asked, morning was a lifting the stories you are told, make the job worthwhile. experience. I work with a wonderful team of like-minded volunteers and we are all focused on providing an excellent service for the visiting public.

Alan pictured in his Games Makers volunteer role during the 201 2 Olympics

3 Recreated operating theatre at NT Dunham IWM NORTH NEWS Massey/Stamford Military Hospital

CENTENARY CHAMPION VOLUNTEERS AT IWM NORTH By Gillian Ashcroft , Volunteer Placement Assistant, IWM North

Fourteen of our volunteers took part in a five week footage from training course to familiarise themselves in more IWM’s collection detail with the First World War and associated IWM as well as projects, events and programmes. Our first week footage welcomed Peter Hart, First World War Historian, who collated by the presented an informative talk about life in the North West film archive. trenches. Volunteers were given an overview of the activities and large public events that are planned at Charlotte Czyzyk, Life Stories IWM North, such as the performances in July by the Co-ordinator for Lives of the First World War, Royal Northern College of Music. We also had a sneaky delivered a session that looked in more detail about peek at the new digital app called Centenary the digital commemorative project. The volunteers Connections which is being launched this summer. were able to see how the website worked and this has led to at least one volunteer supporting the BBC Another session focused on family history and how World War One at Home tour that includes Lives of visitors could be signposted to relevant information the First World War. within the museum as well as external organisations and websites to research their family military history. The sessions aim to help volunteers feel more comfortable talking about the First World War IWM North’s school project, Finding our First World Centenary with our visitors and help to promote the War, has developed loan boxes for teachers to borrow programmes we are running at IWM North. As part and use in the classroom. The project co-ordinator led of the training we arranged a visit to National Trust a session looking at the objects included in the Dunham Massey in early June. During the First World box and answered questions about how War the Georgian house was transformed into to use them. The final week Stamford Military Hospital. To mark the centenary focused on a selection they have turned back the clock so visitors can of film discover what life was like for the patients there. A great day was had by all. www.nationaltrust.org.uk/dunham-massey.

IWM North volunteers and staff during their recent visit to Dunham Massey

4 IWM’S WAR MEMORIALS ARCHIVE NEWS

MEMORIALS INTEREST TAKEN BACK DOWN UNDER... By Stephanie Chinneck , Student Volunteer, War Memorials Archive

I have been very lucky to be given the opportunity to be a volunteer at IWM working in the War Memorials Archive (WMA). In the autumn of 201 3 I worked on a names list project for the First World War Centenary. As a uni student from Sydney it was really exciting being given a placement in London and to work in an interesting project area! It was also wonderful to get some practical experience in such a topical area of IWM’s work. My task was to look at the files in the project office and assess the photos or names list before scanning them into the computer. I was amazed by how many records there were. There are over 65,000 memorials recorded in total, although this is to all wars. It was also interesting to see how many different types of memorials there are which I had not known about before taking part in the project. There are even towns and villages that created memorials to give thanks for the safe return of all of those who went from the area to serve in the First World War. These are unusual, of course, because not many villages survived the war without any losses. It was a nice change after reading pages of names of those who died to find a village memorial set up to commemorate that there was no loss of life. It has been interesting to work in the WMA office, I’ve learnt a lot about memorials and how the information about them is dealt with. I’ll admit that before the placement I did not pay much attention to war memorials, usually walking straight past them. Now I notice them more often and stop to look at them, the sheer number of memorials brings home how many lives were lost in the First and Second World Wars. I have enjoyed my time at IWM and hope to be able to continue working in museums in the future.

Stephanie Chinneck beside the Mona Vale war memorial, Australia

5 HMS BELFAST NEWS

VOLUNTEER SERVICES TEAM SUPPORTS D-DAY WEEKEND EVENT ON BOARD ... By IWM Event Staff and Volunteers , HMS Belfast

On the weekend of 24 and 25 May a D-Day 70th Interaction Volunteers hosted screenings of D-Day film Anniversary themed event was staged on HMS Belfast to footage throughout each day in the Morgan Giles Room. help raise public awareness of the importance of both D-Day and the crucial role of the ship on 6 June 1944. After the weekend Helen Blakeborough in our Events A number of the extra services offered to visitors over Team who had helped to co-ordinate the overall event both days of the weekend were delivered by our Warship advised that: “ The D-Day weekend was a great succes s... Conservation, Interaction, Office Support and Radio visitor numbers for the weekend exceeded our target with Section Volunteers who turned out in significant numbers over 2,800 visitors attending. Feedback on the day (from over the weekend to help our IWM staff and partner staff speaking to visitor s) was incredibly positive, all organisations bring the ship alive. families that we talked to on their way out did comment how much they enjoyed it. We also noted that visitors All visitors to the ship were greeted on arrival by two were staying onboard for longer, we see most families actors in wartime costume playing the role of a come and go in one or two hours but this weekend D-Day Admiral and Able Seaman serving on board. people were staying on longer to enjoy the activitie s... Offered the opportunity to complete a D-Day themed Comments on the trail were that it seemed to work well, mission card those accepting had to then make their encouraging visitors around the ship and lengthening way around eight locations within the ship with strong their visit. The interaction volunteers played a huge part connections to D-Day such as the Sick Bay in which in this and in ‘bringing the trail alive’ so a massive thanks wounded Canadian servicemen were treated following to them. Every gun firing was incredibly popular with a injuries sustained during the landings on 6 June. At a big crowd gathering on the boat deck even in the rai n... number of the eight locations our visitors encountered It was difficult to encourage people into the Morgan Giles friendly members of our Interaction and Radio Section Room where we had the D-Day film and sound clips Volunteer Teams who both introduced the location and available to view, but the volunteers here did their best assisted visitors’ efforts to complete their mission card to interact with the visitors and encourage them i n... by answering a question relevant to that space. Taking I am sure the positive word of mouth this weekend will the first letters of each answer enabled completion of benefit us throughout the summer. ” the hidden mission code word ‘OVERLORD’, the original 1944 code name for the Allied invasion of Europe. Tim Mansfield, one of our Office Support Volunteers on duty on 24 May, commented that: “ This turned into a Our Warship Conservation volunteers highlighted the terrific day, if I had planned it myself it could not have crucial bombardment role played by HMS Belfas t ’s been any better so my first thought must be to say thank 6-inch and secondary 4-inch armament with you for arranging for me to man the Morgan Giles Room regular simulated 4-inch gun firings and and welcome our visitors to watch the archive film and to supporting explanation sessions listen to the veterans’ accounts. I enjoyed every minute of and our Office Support it... It was also good to meet some volunteers I haven't and seen for some time: Dave Rayment and Lowri Daniels made a point of popping in during their breaks which was great and it was a wonderful opportunity to catch up with Richard Maddox. Feedback from the public while they were with us was all positive, everyone was saying that they were enjoying themselves, and on at least three occasions I had very positive comments about variations on the theme of ‘the nice people who were being so helpful’. Many thanks again for arranging for me to make such an enjoyable contribution to a great day. Kind regards, Tim. ”

Left, top: Interaction Team Volunteers Carol Harris and Anita Leone assist visitors queuing for the Y Turret interactive experience near to the Quarterdeck. Left, bottom: Warship Conservation Volunteers Sarah Nibloe and Joseph Cheung by the P1 4-inch mounting shortly before another 6 simulated firing on 24 May. CHURCHILL WAR ROOMS NEWS

CHURCHILL WAR ROOMS HELPS TO TRAIN OUR GROWING INTERACTION TEAM

By Grant Rogers , Informal Learning Manager, New Interaction Team Volunteers take part IWM London Branches in the ‘In their shoes’ session at CWR on Thursday 5 June With the closure of IWM London during the major works linked to the Regeneration programme, some of the service testing and training of new recruits and established volunteers for our planned interaction service at IWM London has been undertaken at Churchill War Rooms (CWR). Additionally, new team members for our ‘Out of the Box’ interaction service at CWR itself have been inducted and trained to supplement our regular volunteer numbers at CWR during the summer period. All of these sessions have been led by myself or Jim Hutchinson with the support of our operations and learning staff at CWR. With a further ten team members recruited for interaction operations in April and May 201 4 our current team number now stands at 63 longer term volunteers, enabling Interaction Volunteers at a CWR training session on 29 June us to maintain a service for IWM visitors across our three get to grips with some of the objects to be used in our London branches. interaction operations at IWM London IWM LONDON NEWS

‘HUNDRED DAY VOLUNTEERS’ ARE TRAINED UP FOR THE FIRST WORLD WAR CENTENARY AT IWM LONDON By Jim Hutchinson , Volunteer Programme Manager, IWM London Branches

When the regenerated IWM London opened its doors to visitors on Saturday 19 July, after nearly two years of both partial and full closure, we could expect to be busier than normal. When, however, you add to normal summer holiday visitor flows the looming centenary of the First World War and high levels of public interest in both the centenary itself and IWM’s new exhibitions dedicated to this conflict, then you can safely assume you are going to be much busier than normal! From such thinking and planning by IWM’s management came the agreement to establish a special short term team of Centenary Support Volunteers to work in partnership with our paid Visitor Services staff teams to welcome the many thousands of extra visitors expected at IWM London this summer. With it being 100 years since the outbreak of the First World War it was agreed that a 100 day volunteer project linked to the first opening period of the new galleries from 19 July to 26 October would be particularly appropriate. Once it was decided earlier this year to press ahead with this new short term volunteer role we put the word out on IWM’s website, in our local volunteer centres in Lambeth, Southwark and Westminster and to all of our existing London branches volunteers. By the time that our final recruitment screening session was held on 26 June more than 50 volunteers had been identified by myself and Linda Davies our Visitor Experience Manager at IWM London to be trained in the new centenary Support Volunteer role. Four training sessions for the new team were staged at IWM London on 25 and 28 June and on 2 and 11 July. After these sessions some team members had an opportunity to assist with an invited guest preview event on Friday 18 July and then the 100 days began! At the end of the 100 days of volunteering we will be reviewing and celebrating this volunteer role and determining whether it should be repeated in the future at predicted peak visitor periods during national holidays or the launch of other Centenary linked exhibitions during the next four years.

James Taylor, Head of Research and Information, updates Centenary Support Volunteers on the new First World War galleries at the role training session on 25 June 7 G

N

U E

H C

G

N I

W - IWM LONDON NEWS O H

H P E S

O J

:

O T

O

H TRIP TO BATTLE OF BRITAIN BUNKER P AND RAF MUSEUM LONDON By Joseph Ho-wing Cheung , Warship Conservation Volunteer, HMS Belfast

Wednesday 23 April was a bright and sunny morning as I and other An Battle of Britain bunker volunteer explains volunteers met up inside the grounds of what used to be RAF Uxbridge to the plotting room visit a historic location from where the Battle of Britain was commanded. It was here that the famous quote from “ Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so fe w ” was originally made. Once assembled we were warmly invited into the bunker with the volunteers who help manage the site, and were led down the steps 30ft below ground into the very heart of the bunker itself, the Plotting Room; it was there we took our seats for a very informative lecture about the significance of the bunker and the role it played. IWM London Branches staff and volunteers at the RAF Museum London What fascinated me was some of the facts about the bunker – like hearing how once an individual engagement had begun no duty personnel left the room and there were no watch changes because there was not enough time to inform the next person. We also heard that the air conditioning unit was in fact the very one installed over 70 years ag o... how long would a modern one last these days? Our volunteer was very informative, going into detail about how commanders would give orders as well as receive information about the skies, right down to the understanding of the tote board and position markers as well as some details about specific squadrons and flights. The lecture concluded with a short video documentary of the Battle of Britain in an adjacent room and afterwards we wandered around the bunker complex viewing the many different collections of articles and items which were displayed in the top commander’s view overlooking the plotting table itself. We then assembled again to make our own way to RAF Museum London to complete our trip. We had lunch and a tour with the museum’s volunteer tour guides. We split into smaller groups and visited the many aircraft and exhibits, with our guide giving a full and descriptive explanation of the Battle of Britain as well as information relating to our earlier visit to the Battle of Britain Bunker. One example included viewing the very engine that Ray Holmes used in his aircraft to crash into a German bomber after which his aircraft had ploughed into a road in Victoria. The aircraft was recently excavated and the engine is now preserved. The other was looking at the different German aircraft that flew and some of the stories behind them. One aircraft on display was originally a defected aircraft with the very latest night fighting radar. VOLUNTEER All in all, the trip was a fascinating view of the Battle of Britain with the added bonus that it was St George’s Day with lovely weather ‘SITUATIONS and lovely hosts helping us make the most of the day. VACANT’ WITHIN IWM! Full personal blog can be read at: At all of our IWM branches capacity for new volunteers can vary as http ://wp.m e/p29RPP-DK. training programmes and operational/development projects start and finish. For the latest on current openings for volunteers please contact the Volunteer Programme Managers recruiting for the branch or project that you wish to join. These are:

IWM Duxford : Nicola Hughes, Volunteer Co-ordinator on 0 1223 499 35 7. IWM’s London branches : Jim Hutchinson, Volunteer IWM North : Danielle Garcia, Volunteer Programme Manager on 0207 940 6345. Programme Manager on 016 1 836 4080. 8