Curator of Kendal Museum Meets PM

21 May 2009

THE curator of Kendal Museum was invited to 10, Downing Street this week to help celebrate the work museums do with young people. Beleaguered Prime Minister Gordon Brown even took time off from the MPs’ expenses crisis on Monday night to join the gathering of arts and culture dignitaries, including Jamie Barnes, of Kendal Museum.

Jamie Barnes pictured outside No 10 and a the drawing of a Canada Goose that inspired his future

Among the other guests were Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, Andy Burnham, and Director of the Tate Nick Serota, who is due to visit South Lakeland to open the new Grizedale Arts HQ near Coniston, and also visit South Lakeland Arts Trust.

Jamie was able to tell fellow guests how Kendal College was now managing Kendal Museum, the first FE college in the UK to manage a Museum.
“They were also very interested to hear about Kendal’s College’s proposed plans to help to develop a new ‘Foundation Degree in Curatorship’ through a partnership with the Museum Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) and assisted by Kendal Museum,” he said.

For Jamie, aged 37, of Fellside, Kendal, the event was the culmination of series of coincidences which started with an out-of-classroom learning experience back in Kendal 26 years ago.

He said: “In 1983 I was 11 years old and I attended Castle Park Primary School in Kendal. We had an inspirational Head teacher called Mick Waters and he was very keen that we had adventures and good experiences in and outside the classroom.

“To this end, in March 1983 my whole class and I went on an activity holiday in Keswick for a week. One of the activities we took part in was a visit to Keswick Museum and Art Gallery (then known as 'The Fitz Park Museum').
“This visit had a strong and memorable effect on me. I sat on the wooden floor of the Victorian Museum and carefully drew a mounted Canada Goose on display.

“While exploring the Museum I rapped my knuckle on the famous 'Musical Stones of Skiddaw' (a massive Victorian xylophone made from a rare type of rock from the Keswick mountain Skiddaw). I stared at the 'mummified' 500-year-old cat, and noted down a long list of the Curiosities in the collection. I always remembered this trip and kept all the drawings and writing I had done that week under my bed ever since.

“Twenty years later I was lucky enough to become the Curator of that very Museum in Keswick. As part of my job at the Museum from 2004-2009 I took that stone xylophone all over the country doing concerts with lots of different musicians to help promote Keswick Museum and Art Gallery. We were even lucky enough to play The Royal Festival Hall in 2007.

“Then, in 2007, I bumped into my former Head teacher Mick Waters at an education conference in Ambleside. By this time he had risen high in the education world and become Director of Curriculum for the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA).

“I told him the story of how I had become the Curator of the Museum he had taken us to. He was really excited by this and urged me to send him scans of the work I had kept. I did this, and Mick has used my story as a case study in various talks he has given; proving his point that class trips can have a profound and positive effect on pupils’ adult lives.”

As a result Jamie was invited to the reception held at the Prime Minister’s London home at 10 Downing Street in order to 'honour the work Museums do with children and young people' and to launch a new book ‘Learning to Live: Museums, Young People and Education’, of which Mr Waters wrote a chapter.

“Suddenly there was a excited buzz as Gordon Brown walked into the room. He greeted Nick Serota and talked for some time to a group of school children who were present. He then called for our attention and gave a speech thanking us for the work we do with children in Museums. “
After a tour of the Prime Minister’s official residence, Jamie returned to the Youth Hostel in Russell Square.

“I had a beer with my Canadian room-mate and told him all about the amazing adventure I had just had, all sparked off by that drawing of a Goose I had made in 26 years ago in Keswick,” he added.

See Jamie playing the musical stones of Skiddaw on Myspace