12 minute read
Cover Story By Robin Mills
Robin Mills met Emily Hicks in Bridport, West Dorset
© Emily Hicks Photograph by Robin Mills
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Igrew up a few miles outside Oxford, and was lucky being so close to the city with the ease of connections to the rest of the country. When I was tiny, my Dad, Chris Hicks, managed Blackwells bookshop in Oxford, having worked in various departments of the shop since school. When I was quite young he took up bookbinding full time, developing what had originally been a hobby. We had a brick’ built workshop in our garden. With hindsight, I realise how formative his job was for me when I was young; to have a father whose job was his absolute passion, and was deeply creative. His work fell into three main categories; the restoration work, binding small print-runs of special press books, and theses binding for the academia of Oxford. At a certain time of the summer, students would deliver their PhD theses very early in the morning, and he would bind them within a 24hr turn-around. There was also the fine binding of valuable books, which were effectively works of art, and it was this work which won him several awards and much respect in the craft. Unsurprisingly, our house was full of books, and an unlimited supply of paper and craft materials which my parents encouraged me and my brother to use creatively. I was a bit of a swot at school, my mum being keen on academic achievement. She taught me to read before
I started school, which gave me confidence, and mainly I found school easy and enjoyable. My secondary school was called Wheatley
Emily Hicks
Park, which was on the site of an old manor house. There was an island surrounded by a moat, and the place had a romantic, historic atmosphere. There was no doubt in my mind I wanted to go to university, but had no fixed ideas about a career. So given my upbringing I chose to read English, already being well into the classics, especially Jane Austen and Thomas Hardy. I went to Royal Holloway in Egham, again studying in an historic old building. I loved uni so much I stayed on and did a Masters there, in Victorian Studies.
As a child I enjoyed visits to museums, my Dad taking me and my brother to the Natural History Museum and the Pitt-Rivers in Oxford. There was also an open-air farm museum near Oxford called Cogges Manor Farm, where my Dad would go and demonstrate bookbinding, and I would get roped in. I dressed as a Victorian kitchen maid and helped the cook make Welsh cakes on an old Aga. This experience, together with my family life and education, began to make me think about possibly looking for a museum job.
Finding a paid job in museums without any voluntary experience was a tall order, and these days it’s pretty much impossible. By a stroke of luck, I noticed an advert for an internship for the Wordsworth Trust, at Grasmere in the Lake District. As well as running Wordsworth’s house Dove Cottage, they own 90% of the poet’s manuscripts, and an incredible collection of British Romantic literature. I applied, and went to work there after my Masters degree. It was a bit like going back to uni again, the work being unpaid but with full training and accommodation provided. I was one of a group of interns there, and we had a great time and made friendships for life. We got a very good grounding of the whole spectrum of experiences the centre offered, such as guided tours, conservation cleaning, and teaching children. I did that for 18 months, and then the Education Officer left, so I applied for the job, was successful, and did a paid job for the next 18 months, running the schools programme. That was really the point at which I became focussed on museum work as a career.
Looking for more varied work experience, I became assistant curator at Farnham Museum in Surrey. There was a really friendly but small team there, so we all had to do a bit of everything. I seemed to be often dressing up as Victorian housekeeper (Mrs Muffins!), a Roman housewife, a Tudor housewife, and my acting as a Victorian schoolteacher fortunately only made a child cry once! The children’s reactions were sometimes quite funny; some thought that the past was all in black and white, because of the old photographs. Again, I was lucky to live in a beautiful part of the country and stayed there three years, but by then it felt time to look for another challenge.
Growing up, our family holidays were usually either in Totnes, where my Dad had a friend with a holiday cottage, or Dorset. I knew places like Lulworth and Milton Abbas, but had not actually heard of Bridport. So after the three years in Farnham I saw the job here in Bridport advertised. I came for a recce initially, which was before the museum’s redevelopment, and saw immediately that there were definitely opportunities to create an amazing Museum. The interview was rather formal, in the council room at Mountfield, and despite feeling really ill, adrenaline kicked in and I got the job, which I started in November 2010. In 2012, we received a bequest called the Sanctuary Rope and Net Collection. Anthony Sanctuary was a director of Bridport Gundry, and he and his wife Frances had created a private museum of net making at Uploders, We were also fortunate to attract a Lottery grant which enabled the redevelopment to go ahead, and we reopened in May 2017. It was an incredible team effort; I think projects like this only ever succeed with a truly collaborative approach. I am still very proud of the result: we are constantly told that it is fun and accessible, our ropemaking demonstrations are hugely popular, and hopefully the whole place will always feel quite “Bridport” and a key part of our community.
We only have three paid staff, with around 80 volunteers. During Covid last year, the other 2 staff were furloughed, but I stayed working, focussing on grant applications, and caretaking the building and collections. We ran digital campaigns such as ‘Bake Bridport’ and ‘Melplash Memories’, but when we reopened in October last year it was really powerful to be able to provide that ‘real’ physical experience again.
We are very lucky to be generously supported by Dorset Council and Bridport Town Council. But these are challenging times for everyone, so having been free entry since 2010, we introduced an entry charge last year of £5 per adult for a year’s entry, which we feel is amazing value and is now crucial for our survival. We also keep a close eye on what grants may be available, and have been lucky to recently receive £100,000 from the Esme Fairbairn Foundation to undertake a community engaged Collections Review Project. We are asking the community to have a say in what parts of our collections, 95% of which are in store, we should keep; what we don’t keep, where should it go, and what should we collect in the future. We really want the collections to reflect our communities.
I began piano lessons at the age of seven, often scraping my way through exams until eventually I made it to Grade 8 when I was 18. It was at times a painful process as I didn’t always practise thoroughly and I got really nervous for the exams! I was in the school orchestra, played clarinet and flute sometimes, but wasn’t really as passionate about playing as I was about singing. At university I sang in the chapel choir, and became a choral scholar. Occasionally I sang solo at concerts or weddings. When I moved to Bridport I took lessons with a teacher near Blandford, and two years ago started lessons with Anna Gregory at Hawkchurch. Anna is a
© Emily Hicks Photograph by Robin Mills
professional opera singer and an incredible teacher who has really set my voice free and encouraged me with solo work. I have performed many times with the New Elizabeth Singers in Bridport, and am currently touring with local composer Matthew Coleridge, as the soprano soloist for his Requiem. This is an amazingly exciting project, but we only managed to perform at Portsmouth Cathedral before Covid hit and other dates were cancelled. Now we are up and running again we have been recently to Dorchester-on-Thames and Romsey. Warwick and Bristol are next on the list for me this year. They say that singing releases endorphins—it definitely makes me happy. It’s my favourite thing. ’
In an article prior to the launch of his new TV series, Universe, Professor Brian Cox said he would like to launch Boris Johnson into space. It was the sort of comment that would generally be pounced upon by journalists, at least until they saw the rest of the sentence: ‘…and return him safely to Earth.’ Professor Cox’s motivation for launching the Prime Minister into space turns out to be less due to frustration or anger with his track record as a politician, but rather more as a way to offer a lesson to the many world leaders that make decisions about the future of our planet. He was talking about the profound effect of seeing the earth from space and the comments he had heard from astronauts that had experienced it. The more people who experience it, he said, ‘the more we will come to value our planet and our fellow human beings, and our civilisation.’ He suggested making it compulsory for anyone who wants to run a country to go to space. Perhaps a bit like a world leader visiting the site of a disaster—but in this case an impending disaster. ‘Go up there, look at the planet that you are responsible for, look at it in the cosmic context, the context in which it sits, and then come back and make your choices.’ Many of those who saw artist Luke Jerram’s ‘Gaia’ installation at this year’s Inside Our Dorset Festival would probably get that point. Sitting below an art installation showing how the earth looks from space was inspiring, to actually experience the real thing must have a huge impact. However, at current rates, ($400,000 to $500,000 according to Professor Cox), it might be out of reach for most of us, but that doesn’t mean the sentiment isn’t still inspirational. When 90-year-old William Shatner of Star Trek fame returned from a Jeff Bezos-sponsored trip, he was overwhelmed. He hugged the Amazon boss and said: ‘What you have given me is the most profound experience I can imagine.’ His emotion was palpable. But a point he made many times afterward was just how thin the line is between earth and space and the fragility of our planet. He called it ‘this little tiny blue skin’ and said we all need a wake-up call to the importance of protecting it. Space tourism may not be popular with everybody, but Shatner’s reaction and his sentiment will have reached a lot of people. 3 Cover Story By Robin Mills 10 West with the Light By Fergus Byrne
12 Past Present and Future - Sophy Layzell 16 Event News and Courses
24 A Family Legacy By Christopher Roper
26 News & Views
27 Latterly Speaking By Humphrey Walwyn 28 An early Dorset poet and writer By Cecil Amor
30 Can Dorset become Britain’s first
Sustainable Palm Oil county? By Fergus Byrne
34 House & Garden
34 Vegetables in November By Ashley Wheeler 36 November in the Garden By Russell Jordan 38 Property Round Up By Helen Fisher
40 Food & Dining
40 Butter Baked Apples By Lesley Waters 42 Temperley Bramble Sour By Mark Hix
44 Arts & Entertainment
44 Bee Tiger By James Crowden 46 Preview By Gay Pirrie Weir 50 Screen Time By Nic Jeune 51 Young Lit Fix By Antonia Squire 52 Review By Colin Ward
54 Galleries
58 Health & Beauty 60 Services & Classified
Fergus Byrne
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