Visiting Poole Museum, remembering times when one was unafraid
Whenever I have had enough of the sights and sounds of Falkland Square, I seek sanctuary in Poole Museum - there comes a time when you have seen one too many pit bull, one too many brawny girl in her grey trackies -
The museum is housed in a slim hull of red brick, a former warehouse just off from Poole Quay - the galleries have low ceilings, supported by rough hewn beams - there are four galleries, with a cunning roof top terrace attached to the topmost gallery - from the terrace, you can see a slice of the harbour - gulls fly over the choppy grey water - small boats line the quayside - passers by head for the pubs, or for the Brownsea Island Ferry -
Within the museum, the exhibits are well chosen - quirky, full of memory - there is an inter-active screen near the entrance, showing you the harbour through two millenia - a long dug out canoe, treated and preserved by some strange science, reminds you of the time when this locality was a marshy wilderness - hunters paddled their canoes along mazy channels - tall rushes hid wild fowl - still pools were used for sacrifices -
You can use the micro fiche reader to explore the dense columns of 19th Century local newspapers - there are accounts of murders, shipping movements and assemblies - a cheery gaffer in a tweed jacket will guide you through the archives -
I was especially taken by the portraits of Poole sea captains - they had wary, proud, faces - there were pages from their logs, with weather observations made in italic script -
There were pictures showing the development of Poole as a holiday destination - I looked at the two young women, running down to the beach, I guess, in the 1960's - I wondered if they'd had their hair done in those weird hair dryers I'd seen - they looked like Dan Dare ray guns -
There was a sort of innocence about their faces - a guileless enjoyment of the moment - I wondered what had happened to them - how had their lives been? - I thought of how everyone has at least one picture, in which they are at once both unafraid and beautiful -
Whenever I have had enough of the sights and sounds of Falkland Square, I seek sanctuary in Poole Museum - there comes a time when you have seen one too many pit bull, one too many brawny girl in her grey trackies -
The museum is housed in a slim hull of red brick, a former warehouse just off from Poole Quay - the galleries have low ceilings, supported by rough hewn beams - there are four galleries, with a cunning roof top terrace attached to the topmost gallery - from the terrace, you can see a slice of the harbour - gulls fly over the choppy grey water - small boats line the quayside - passers by head for the pubs, or for the Brownsea Island Ferry -
Within the museum, the exhibits are well chosen - quirky, full of memory - there is an inter-active screen near the entrance, showing you the harbour through two millenia - a long dug out canoe, treated and preserved by some strange science, reminds you of the time when this locality was a marshy wilderness - hunters paddled their canoes along mazy channels - tall rushes hid wild fowl - still pools were used for sacrifices -
You can use the micro fiche reader to explore the dense columns of 19th Century local newspapers - there are accounts of murders, shipping movements and assemblies - a cheery gaffer in a tweed jacket will guide you through the archives -
I was especially taken by the portraits of Poole sea captains - they had wary, proud, faces - there were pages from their logs, with weather observations made in italic script -
There were pictures showing the development of Poole as a holiday destination - I looked at the two young women, running down to the beach, I guess, in the 1960's - I wondered if they'd had their hair done in those weird hair dryers I'd seen - they looked like Dan Dare ray guns -
There was a sort of innocence about their faces - a guileless enjoyment of the moment - I wondered what had happened to them - how had their lives been? - I thought of how everyone has at least one picture, in which they are at once both unafraid and beautiful -
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