Museum Apologetic About Tidiness

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31269, 16 January 1967, Page 2

Museum Apologetic About Tidiness

1 The Geffye Museum in Shoreditch in the East End of London is a museum with a difference. It is not a collecting museum but sets out to tell the story of the middleclass English livingroom from 1500 to the present —in other words from the first Elizabeth to the second Elizabeth.

In a 8.8. C. interview Mrs Harrison, the curator, said: “In showing things of the past one must not only tell people about them, but indicate something of what life was like, because we get a romantic view of history so often from books anyway. “The only way in which I can think that we don't tell the whole truth here is that our rooms are clean and tidy. They have to be—they’re on display. In fact, of course, no home has ever been tidy, as tidy as these rooms are, and certainly all the homes, rich and poor, up to fairly recent times, smelled abominably and were filthy. It’s only in the last 100 years that we’ve known anything about the connexion between dirt and disease and have thought as much about personal cleanliness. And it would have been impossible for any visitors to go into these earlier rooms if they were accurate.” Mrs Harrison said that the Geffrye Museum, being small and friendly, attracted people from the neighbourhood and many schoolchildren. The museum has a staff of three full-

time teachers, and extra crafts people, who were not necessarly teachers, during the holidays. She felt that school visits were better than lectures for schools. "They’re informal talks, discussions, chats, demonstrations. Children handle things when appropriate, they talk among themselves. They draw. They put on costumes, reproduction costumes, of course, but good reproduction costumes. And in every way possible they feel something about the period, and discuss it themselves rather than sit and listen to somebody else talking. “What we hope the children get when they come here is a feeling that things of the past are interesting, that there are areas of interest to explore. We hope something of that will stick."

In Love With Beatle.—An actress, Jane Asher, aged 20, flying off to the United States for five months to play Juliet in “Romeo and Juliet” on the stage told London reporters that she was deeply in love with Paul McCartney, and they might marry this year, the “Daily Express” reported. —London, January 13.