Dinosaurs and Bees

This month’s IndieWeb Carnival is hosted by James, who has chosen the topic Museum memories.

I love my local museums, most are part of North East Museums, which are free to enter and have a publicly accessible archive. I spent many childhood hours (free days out for three kids is a big win) between the Hancock Museum (natural history) and Discovery Museum (science and local history).

My earliest memory of a museum is from inside the Hancock Museum in Newcastle. I was there to see the animatronic dinosaurs exhibition with my family. I was probably 7 or 8 years old, one sibling was in a pushchair, the other in a child carrier on my dad’s back. There were three things I remember vividly about the day, one was my sibling falling asleep in the carrier and sleeping through the T-Rex roaring. Another was the size of the Triceratops, the T-Rex was the size I expected but something about the animatronic Triceratops sticks in my head, I think it’s because I was able to get closer to it. If I remember correctly it was near the entrance and behind a very low rope, just asking to be touched by children.

The third thing, completely unrelated to the dinosaurs exhibition, was the beehive on the window of the stairwell of the museum, I was fascinated by the little bees wiggling around in the hexagons exposed to the glass and the low humming that echoed a little in the stairwell. Occasionally bees would find their way inside, presumably through a nearby crack in the wall and attempt to access the hive from behind the glass. I’m not sure if the bees chose this spot randomly, or if it was deliberate, a glimpse into the inner workings of a hive, but either way it was amazing. I used to watch out for it in the stairwell whenever we revisited, though I didn’t always spot it as the building had a few identical sets of stairs and I still don’t remember which it was on. I don’t think they ever made honey as it was just the one hive and being high up, would definitely be a hassle but it would be cool to have museum honey.

I think the animatronic dinosaurs exhibition was a travelling one, it visited the Hancock a few more times, I went three times in total but I don’t recall the third time. The second time must have only been a year or two later as my youngest sibling was still in a pushchair, though able to choose when they got out for a closer look at things.

These days it goes by Great North Museum: Hancock and in August 2015 I got to work with them and Applied Comics Etc. to make Spineless: The Newcastle Science Comic to accompany their special exhibition all about invertebrates. My many childhood visits to museums are part of why I love learning things and sharing what I learn with other people.

I was likely visiting English Heritage sites long before those museum visits as my parents are into history, mythology and big outdoor spaces. Also because Tynemouth Priory and Castle is a very short Metro journey away and letting a kid run around a large outdoor space with bits of castle in it is always delightful. Especially when the history re-enactors have arrived with their tents and their jousting.

Newcastle also has a good amount of Roman outposts for said re-enactors, I’ve seen a tortoise shell shield formation more times than the average human.

On the topic of re-enactment there’s one other museum that deserves a mention as a favourite of my childhood, Beamish. We didn’t visit often as we didn’t have a car for most of my childhood, and for the parts we did travel sickness shared between three children is not fun. But the few occasions we did visit were so exciting, Beamish is another one of those rare safe for kids to run about outdoors spaces, places you could lose an entire day in and not see all of it. But also a place with steam trains and trams! Unusual transport makes children happy.