It was absolutely terrifying – I peered over the edge of the shelf and pondered the sheer drop as the hairs stood up on the back of my neck. This was not a good place to be and not for the faint hearted. It was clearly one of those ‘unintended consequence’ moments. It had all started innocently enough, a casual observation during a meeting that developed into an interesting discussion. However, I never imagined that I would end up doing what I was just about to do – something totally reckless, and on government premises too! Perhaps I should explain ……
We are now in our second year of providing pre-approved funding support for TNA’s Education and Outreach Teams, and supporting family events through the What’s On Team. It is an interesting and rewarding partnership involving a diverse range of topics. It is fascinating to see the collections at Kew being put to good use and made to come alive by inspiring modern interpretations of history through drama, film-making and art.
It was at one of our catch-up meetings that I asked the Education Team if they had a mascot to help connect their more junior pupils to the archives and the history within. The answer was no, they didn’t have a mascot and that got me thinking. At the time we were discussing a family day to be held in June about bugs in Pocket Park. I suggested it would be a good idea to also think about the bugs that Collection Care have to deal with. And so it was that Archives Archie, a bug of some importance, appeared on the scene by way of a short story.
One thing led to another and a staff competition to provide a design for Archie has just finished. Once a winning design has been chosen the idea is to ask for a soft toy maker amongst the members to produce a ‘real life’ Archie, who will then make his debut at the Look out, there’s a mini-beast about! family event in June.
It’s at this point that things start to get a bit hazy. In this day and age of fake news and not quite knowing what is true, false or imagined, all I can say is that Archie suggested I join him for one his favourite past times – Base Jumping, and a look around behind the scenes. I don’t recall agreeing but peering over the edge of the highest point on the top of the storage unit I must have done. I am not allowed to say exactly where I am for security reasons (and my neck) but let’s just say we are in one of the repositories.
Archie just said it would be ok and just to follow what he did, so I did. From the top shelf we jumped across to opposite next shelf down and so on, to and fro. We were soon on the floor and scurried down a bug-run out of sight and well away from the traps. Archie knew the place like the back of his hand and we went here, there and everywhere – through rolls, tumbling over boxes and sneaking into a good spot to get a bug’s eye view of the staff delivering and collecting documents for the reading room. It was an interesting couple of hours and a behind the scenes tour quite unlike any I had previously done. The next trick is to get back to life size and pretend nothing had happened, with my usual air of innocence.
I must say that joining the Friends has not been dull, in fact quite the opposite. A spot of time travel here and there, and then being shrunk too – it is all turning into a bit of a nightmare. At this rate they might even invite me to be chairman! There is nothing for it but to keep calm and carry on.
‘Budge over Archie, there is room enough for two in this box’.