Volunteers energise a local museum and preserve a town’s history.

We visit Malton Museum to learn how a small, volunteer-run collection turns two rooms into a living archive, linking a Roman cavalry fort to today’s racing town. Volunteers share how outreach, oral history, and tours keep heritage alive while offering purpose and skills.

• why time after big life changes can fuel volunteering
• how a two-room museum curates 20,000 artefacts
• front-of-house, collections, exhibitions and outreach roles
• recording living memory for future generations
• school sessions with a Roman legionary and handling kits
• adult walking tours on Romans, brewing, racing and Georgian streets
• the value of volunteer hours to the local economy
• Roman cavalry roots and the modern racing industry
• a chance Roman coin hoard and its research impact
• digital booking, festivals and growing new programmes
• pride of place, new skills and social bonds

Please don't forget to like, follow, or subscribe. That way you'll never miss an episode

If you’ve enjoyed what you’ve heard and are keen to get involved, please click the link below.
https://www.maltonmuseum.co.uk/get-involved/

Facebook.
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61586908623318

Grey Matters More Website
https://greymattersmore.buzzsprout.com/

You Tube Homepage
https://www.youtube.com/@royplayer9527

Bluesky App Homepage
https://bsky.app/profile/greymattersmore.bsky.social

Chapters

• 0:00 Why Your Time Still Matters
• 0:42 Inside A Volunteer-Run Museum
• 1:54 Space, Funding And Purpose
• 4:43 Roles For Every Kind Of Volunteer
• 7:39 Capturing Living Memory
• 9:47 Outreach To Schools And Adults
• 11:51 The Numbers Behind Volunteering
• 14:47 From Roman Fort To Racing Town
• 16:17 Town Tours That Bring History Alive
• 20:28 A Chance Roman Coin Hoard
• 23:10 Digital Tools And New Ideas
• 25:36 New Voices, New Skills
• 28:04 Stories That Hook Visitors
• 37:27 Final Reflections And Invitation

Transcript

Why Your Time Still Matters

Derm Tanner 0:00

Hello, thanks for listening to the Grey Matters Podcast. If you're a re retired or coming up to that big change in your life, chances are no one has ever warned you about all the added time you now have on your hands. No financial expert can help you with that. We spent months travelling around talking to charities, companies, and sports clubs, and it turns out you're needed and valued by them. Keep listening because we might just have a few suggestions for you. I'm Denham Tanner,

Roy Player 0:26

and I'm Roy Player.

Derm Tanner 0:27

and in this episode, we're back in a museum. We've already, of course, been to one of the best known in the world, the Imperial War Museum. But what about smaller, local, no less important museums? , and certainly in this case, run entirely with volunteer help.

Inside A Volunteer-Run Museum

Roy Player 0:42

We decided to go to Malton, which is a small market town outside of York, and obviously York is incredibly historical, but also so is, so is Malton for lots of different reasons and I think that when you come to sort of mention volunteers and keeping these local community museums alive Derm, you don't realise just quite how important they are. But some of that history would be lost if people like Margaret weren't around.

Margaret Shaw 1:12

My name is Margaret Shaw I am a trustee at the museum, and I also lead on all of the outreach work that we do.

Roy Player 1:19

So we're at Malton Museum, it's on the main road, really, or one of the main roads. Yeah, York is coming in coming into Malton. I have lived in this area for 40 years, and you are going to be disgusted with me because I have driven past here many times and kept thinking, oh, I must go in, I must go in. I haven't done, and now we're in here, and I've been reading up about you, Margaret, and it is absolutely stunning what this museum is. Maybe you could just describe where we are at the moment and a little bit of history about the museum if you don't mind.

Margaret Shaw 1:54

Originally the museum was in the old town hall on the marketplace, and in 2012, on Leap Years Day, we left, and we were without anywhere for about 12 months until Rydale District Council gave us these two rooms in what's known as now the subscription rooms, and we got some super grants, I have to say, to be able to turn these two rooms into something that looked vaguely like a museum. It doesn't give us a lot of space and we have to really use it carefully and use it well, and I think over the time people have commented and said just how good it looks. Lots of information, lots of things to look at, but just at the right level, which is pleasing. So, yes, we've sat here really since 2012, and we're now looking for new premises with a bit of luck to get us back onto the marketplace where people will know where we are.

Roy Player 3:01

I think that's part of it, isn't it? It's not just sort of being aware there's a museum, it's knowing where you are and also accessibility, parking and all those kind of things. But we're here at the moment, and Malton, there's no two ways about it. This area is a fantastically historical area. It's stunning. How on earth do you deal with just having two rooms and what is the actual purpose of the museum itself? What are you trying to achieve?

Roles For Every Kind Of Volunteer

Margaret Shaw 3:27

Right. Well, it's twofold. Number one, obviously, is for the locals, like yourself, to bring them in and say, look, this is the history of these two towns, Malton and Norton, going right back to prehistory, the Romans, and then post-Romans, right the way up to the 20th century. Secondly, we're looking for tourists and the visitors to the town. We're not a tourist town, not really, but we do get people who often stay in the local hotels who come in and are quite amazed by what they find and what they learn, which is nice. The problem is lack of funding. We used to be funded to some extent by the local councils, but that stopped, and of course, volunteers who give so freely of their time. But it is a two-way thing you know, volunteers give of their time spend time here, but talk to the visitors and learn so much about the visitors as well, and you just get to know so many more people. It's a social thing, really. I love it, I really love it. I have been a volunteer here for 20 years.

Roy Player 4:43

If someone was interested in helping out at the museum, do you have to have skills? How do people get involved and what can people get up to within the museum itself?

Margaret Shaw 4:54

No skills are necessary other than probably you like talking to people, and that's if you want to work as a front of house steward, because obviously you are then the pointy end of the museum. You welcome people onto the site, you show them around, probably sort of pick out what you like and explain to them. That's why I like that, what do you think, and so on. Making their well, we always say our front of house are day makers. They can make that person's day just by having a conversation, and being a volunteer doesn't have to necessarily mean that you work front of house. We have the outreach team, we have the collections team, we have people who do all the admin in the background as well. There are lots of different aspects whereby whatever your interest is, you can find where you want to be.

Roy Player 5:46

And if there was something like, for example, I mean, I you know, you look around and some of these artefacts, these are valuable, and so you talk about collections and volunteers. How, how I mean I would feel quite nervous about touching some of these things. But if you're someone who's really fascinated by history, really fascinated by the, the tactile sort of the being able to touch history is fantastic. So, so as a volunteer, someone who wanted to come along and and work amongst the collections, what sort of thing do they have to do?

Margaret Shaw 6:15

The collections team is quite a very close unit, I have to say, because that is the one area where you do need some training. But anybody who joins that group will get any training that they need. They will be kept a little bit at hand, arm's length until such times as they are ready to go with the stuff. But even just setting up the exhibitions that takes a lot of people's skills and time, and this is all learnt by working with the volunteers. Everybody's so keen to have new people in and exchange their information, pass it out to new ones so that we can all enjoy what we've done.

Roy Player 6:55

Everything is beautifully displayed, and you've got great information boards as well, and I presume someone has to make those happen.

Margaret Shaw 7:03

The exhibition team. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Roy Player 7:05

And that's all part of it, isn't it? , and so it's making it appealing for people to come in and look and read about stuff that's in that's in here.

Margaret Shaw 7:13

What you want people to do is to come in and enjoy looking at it and go out and tell other people, because this is what then brings in the locals. You see, the problem is locals think, oh, I went there last year, I've seen it all and it's not true. We change the exhibition as often as we can when we can afford it, and there's always something new to see something new to learn about, something new to get involved with very often as well.

Roy Player 7:40

Again, something that I found fascinating about the museum is that you get older people to come in and tell their stories about living and an exhibition you had about racing, and racing is obviously synonymous with Malton in this area. That must be great as well for both age ranges because you've got someone coming in to tell their story, young people to learn from that, older people to put those stories across.

Margaret Shaw 8:07

Indeed, yes. I mean we have got quite a few conversations now that we've been able to record. Some of them are actually on display in there where people sit and listen, covered all sorts of different topics. But again, yes, as you say, you know, this it's a two-way thing. You come in, you listen, you learn, and you take this information out there.

Roy Player 8:28

I think the stories that people tell, I mean, harsh reality is that once people have passed away, I, I go up to Holy Island a lot, Lindisfarne. Yes, and there's a museum there, and it has sort of stories from the fishermen of time's gone by and times gone by from during the war and what it was like living on the island during the war, and of course, a lot of those people now have passed away, but you can sit in that museum and listen to those stories, yeah, and you can learn so much, not just about those individuals, but about the area as well.

Outreach To Schools And Adults

Margaret Shaw 9:01

The way of life, the way of life. I mean, this is what we've done with some of ours. There's one story on there in the Second World War when we had Canadian Air Force I think they were, stationed outside Malton, and they wouldn't drink anything local, they wanted their coke. So the local it wasn't a brewer, I suppose he made soft drinks, got the actual recipe, and he was allowed to produce coke. But as soon as the war was over, that was it silence, and coke's never been produced again here. But yeah, I mean those sort of stories that people wouldn't know about unless we can actually record them and keep them. Very important.

Roy Player 9:47

It's extraordinarily important, I think, but you now if we move on to your real sort of passion, I suppose, it's that outreach program.

Margaret Shaw 9:56

It's divided, I suppose, into the children and the adults. Children, fortunately, Romans are still on the primary syllabus, so we actually get to go out into schools and we do what we call our Roman legacy. We have a wonderful volunteer who dresses up as a Roman soldier, talks to them in Latin, and says, Who understood me? etc. I mean they are he's brilliant, and two other people, and we do various activities introducing the children to what it might have been like to live on the fort here and to be part of the, the Roman soldiers and even the village that grew up here.

Roy Player 10:38

So we talk about kids, which is great, but what about adults as well?

Margaret Shaw 10:42

Well, I think this is equally as important. You know, it's lifelong learning, isn't it? You know, you you're never too old to learn a bit more. And so we have two aspects really. We have our town tours, which have been running now for about five or six years. Gradually we're adding more tours as well. We have specific ones which tie into the history of brewing, another one on the history of racing, another one on the Georgian buildings of the town. So they appeal to a wide audience really.

Roy Player 11:13

How important has it been to you to come to kind of find this?

Margaret Shaw 11:18

I actually started volunteering here before I even gave up work, to be honest, we had our own business and I was able to spare some time and got into it gradually. But it's almost the be all and end all. I just love the time here. My husband gets very cross with me. He says you spend far too much time at that museum. There's just so many people to talk to and so much to do, and the aspects are just infinitesimal, and I love it. I love it to bits.

Phil Crabtree 11:51

Hello, I'm Phil Crabtree. I'm the chair of Malton Museum. I've been chair for the last three and a half years, and I retired from work substantively in about 2018. So I've been volunteering since then. First at Helmsley Walled Garden, and then subsequently I joined the museum in 2023.

Derm Tanner 12:10

Now, volunteering at Malton Museum and the concept of volunteering is extremely important, isn't it?

Phil Crabtree 12:17

Well, it's the lifeblood of our museum. For most of our life we've never had full-time any staff, and yet we managed to pull our weight as a accredited museum with a nationally significant collection of some 20,000 plus artefacts, all of which are documented, which is rare for any organisation. So the professionalism and time which the museum which volunteers put into the museum is critical to what we do. We have something like 47 volunteers at the moment. They contribute six and a half thousand year hours a year voluntarily with a value, and it depends how you calculate it, but if a we're estimate about £100,000 to the local economy. Never mind what we actually bring in terms of spend to the economy as well.

Derm Tanner 13:03

Those are very important numbers. We talked a little bit about volunteering. It's not just about volunteers from a particular age, you have lots of outreach courses and things in order to get people involved more and more daily.

Phil Crabtree 13:17

Yeah, we take volunteers from a variety of backgrounds and ages, for example, a number of our trustees are in their well early to mid-stages of their career, and they want to become involved as trustees because it furthers their understanding of how organizations have run and is part of their career path. So something like twelve months ago we recruited three young women to join our volunteer group, and all of them, I'm pleased to say, have had career progression in the time they've been volunteered at the museum, and they've said the experience they gain with us is invaluable. But we also take children from placements, work, work experience placements from schools and also from local groups with social or emotional problems who gain confidence in their work with the museum, meeting people in a friendly and supportive environment.

Derm Tanner 14:10

It's a proper partnership, isn't it? You mean you, you're giving them something and they're really getting something back.

From Roman Fort To Racing Town

Phil Crabtree 14:16

Well, one hopes so, and you know, you you'll speak to other older volunteers and they'll talk about the friendship and kinship and that they get through coming here, and that's an important part of their lives. I think that's particularly true with certain single older people who are often on their own and they come here and they get a social interaction and friendships which are really valuable to them. But what's the next stage for the for the Malton Museum? Well, the museum's eighty years old. As I say, it's got a very important collection and some very rare objects within our collection. You might you're too due to talk to Nick later and you might want to explore the hoard that he found at Hovingham some years ago when he was a boy and that's very rare indeed. But we want to get a permanent home so we can more adequately display the collection we have, bring it to the attention of not just the local people, but those from the region and beyond. We get people from abroad at time to time because it is so special, such an interesting area and it goes back from prehistory right through to modern times, with the emphasis on the Roman fort and settlement that took place in Malton and Norton when the Romans were in occupancy, that that was a cavalry fort fort. So there's a immediate tie-up between a cavalry fort, which was the outreach, if you like, from York to safeguard it from marauding Vikings and Scotsmen, and the horse racing industry today, which is probably the biggest industry in, i in Malton, and there are some very famous horses and trainers, and that's featured in our exhibitions.

Derm Tanner 15:47

That is really interesting. I've never really made that kind of connection before, but, but fascinating.

Town Tours That Bring History Alive

Phil Crabtree 15:53

We are the third biggest centre for horse racing industry, five hundred odd plus people, some very important trainers, recently deceased Peter Easterby being one, and it's to do with the quality, as I understand it, I'm no expert, of the grass and so on that the horses can eat because of the lime base or Yorkshire Wolves, which are very nutritious, as I understand it, for horse industry.

Simon 16:17

Hello, I'm Simon, I'm a volunteer at Malton Museum.

Nick 16:20

Hello, I'm Nick, and I've been volunteering at Malton Museum for eight years.

Andrew 16:25

Hello, I'm Andrew, and I've been volunteering since early 2012.

Derm Tanner 16:28

Okay, so three gentlemen here with various amounts of experience and expertise, but all the doing the same thing, which is which is volunteering here at this extraordinary museum in Malton. Let me come to you first Simon, if I may, as to what got you involved?

Simon 16:46

I retired to Malton after lifetime working in buildings in Edinburgh, and I looked on the website and saw that they did town tours, and that's what excited me and so I arrived last year and offered my services, and now I'm heavily involved with the town tours.

Derm Tanner 17:04

Tell me more a bit more about the town tours.

Simon 17:06

Well, well, there's a walking tours, and we do a range of them. There's a Roman tour, which is based at the Roman Fort, one on the medieval tour, medieval Malton, which is based at St. Mary's in in Old Malton, and then we do Georgian Boom Time which is the rise of Malton in the 18th and 19th centuries, Horses in Malton, which is about the racing industry, Road, River and Rail, which is about transport. Then we've also recently I've written one last year, which was on beer and brewing in Malton. And we've got a couple in in preparation at the moment, so the including Dickens in Malton.

Derm Tanner 17:40

So when you first put your hand up, did you envisage you would be as in as involved as as you are and what you've been doing?

Simon 17:47

No, but I, I, I wanted to get involved, and I and I, I like to think I'm quite committed. So if I'm going to want to do something, I'm going to do it to the best of my ability, and, and I was quite surprised how quickly I got heavily involved, but it's been great fun. It's a great group of people, and it's interesting stories to tell, and over the years, an incredible amount of knowledge has been amassed, and the town tours is a really interesting way of spreading the word about the interesting collections in the museum and how interesting Malton is as a place.

Derm Tanner 18:18

I've learnt many things in the summer talking to a lot of volunteers, and the one thing I always see is when they start to talk about what they do, their faces light up because they love, you have to love what you're doing, otherwise you wouldn't be here, would you Nick?

Nick 18:33

No, I mean I think you've got to have a passion for it. But as I said, I came on board and it was really just to do a bit of oral history recording and a bit of media and photography, and then they said, You just would you like to do a bit of front of house? and I didn't know whether I could do it or not, but I've really enjoyed it and seemed to have fitted in well and met some good friends, and there's a social aspect and learning skills, and it's it's really good to do something for the community, you know, community asset, and when I go home on a night after doing a shift, and I think yeah, I've helped community asset keep going.

Derm Tanner 19:07

You said something very interesting there, which is learning new skills. Because sometimes when we get to a certain age, we think, Well, you know, are we gonna learn anything new anymore?

Nick 19:17

Well, I think you're learning all the time because when I came on board I saw an advert in the local paper and one in appealing for volunteers, and I thought, well, is it something I can do with you know what can I bring to them in any assets? But I've actually felt that what I've done for Malton Museum is valuable and benefit for future generations, but you, you pick up life skills all through your life, and there's even things I've learned here that, that will leave me in good stead for other projects, you know. So it's good to help a community asset keep it alive, and I you know I can't recommend volunteering enough. It's it it and also it really does your mental health good, you know, it's it's increased my confidence and feel sort of part of a team, and it's it's brilliant, yeah.

Derm Tanner 20:12

So if you weren't doing this, what do you think you would have been doing?

Nick 20:15

Well, I don't know, it's hard to tell really, but what what I can say is that I found it very rewarding and satisfying, and I feel as if I'm helping to tell the historical story of Malton.

Derm Tanner 20:28

I want to know though about the treasure trove you found, your family found. Tell me more about that.

Nick 20:32

Yeah, well there is actually quite a strong link with my family because we lived at Hovingham for quite a long time. Well, I grew up there with my dad had a farm, and to cut a long story short, we used to play in the park in Hovingham Estate and my brother actually saw a shiny coin near this bank, and on close inspection there was it kept scrating away, and there was loads of like silver coins came to the surface, they were actually a Roman coin hoard, and it to think that

Derm Tanner 21:06

Just lying there

Nick 21:07

Just absol literally just no metal detector or anything, just literally on the bank near the stream, absolutely immaculate condition, as if they'd been minted the the day before, you My brother said what he found incredible was he was the first person, human to touch those coins in hundreds of years, you know, and just to go back to my my sort of involvement in the museum, it's been wonderful to actually go full circle and find that these coins are now in the Malton Museum archive and a lady from the, a researcher from British Museum came up earlier this year and I met her, and she was absolutely enthralled with them. You know, she couldn't the the detail on them was incredible and she said it was very an incredibly significant find.

Derm Tanner 22:00

An unbelievably lucky find because I mean there are detectorists who spent years around muddy fields in November, and you guys just stumble upon something just practically open.

Nick 22:13

Yeah, to this day, I think it's regarded as being one of the you know best Roman coin find in North Yorkshire, sorry. So, so it's a claim to fame. It's difficult to believe to be honest. I mean, I still talked to my brother now about it, and he said he, he couldn't believe the condition of them. You know, they're immaculate, and to think, I mean, I don't know what kind of person would have those coins in that day. I mean, I would imagine they'd be somebody fairly rich, but other other people will be able to tell me that. But every, every time I see those coins now, I think you know that's a part of our life and history sort of thing.

Derm Tanner 22:55

I would imagine they were on their way to pay for something and someone decided to them, I should imagine. That's that's what happened.

Nick 23:00

To think that they're now in this archive is, is absolutely fantastic. Yeah, that's fantastic. Yeah,

Derm Tanner 23:08

Well done, you lost.

Nick 23:09

Yeah, that's good.

Digital Tools And New Ideas

Derm Tanner 23:10

Now, listening very patiently to that is Andrew or Andy, depending on which you know they called me Andy here. So 13 years you've been a volunteer, and I and you were telling me that when you were first here the museum wasn't even open.

Andrew 23:21

Well, just the last part of the museum packing away, really. We were in the old town hall, which was quite a suitable venue for us, but we weren't able to stay there, so we spent quite a while trying to find a new venue.

Derm Tanner 23:36

There are obviously plans to to have a another home. So, what, what what do you get involved in, Andy? What did what's and how did you get involved?

Andrew 23:44

Like Simon said, all sorts here, we linked with the town tours, we had another volunteer years back who proposed the idea of making bookings easier. We were going more towards the digital side of things, and instead of people having to come here and buy tickets and were not open all the time, we thought we'll put them online. So we wanted a booking system. So I went away and did my research, looked at various options, and now we've stuck with the same system since. I think we must have had that for about five years or so. Maybe longer now. Yeah, at least five years anyway and the system works really quite nicely because obviously it's available 24-7 and people can go and book their tickets, and it just streamlines everything for us, a nd we've only just recently started charging for the museum entry. But yeah, the town tours sort of thing preceded that and also we've got the Roman Festival, which is another ticketing issue, and working out how we do that as well has been I suppose partly an adventure. Certainly it's certainly an experience, and it's been quite, quite interesting to work out all these solutions IT wise.

Derm Tanner 24:56

Yeah, it's like everything, I suppose, though, isn't it? Because if you, you have to keep thinking of new ideas and, and, and Simon was talking about writing new things, because if you don't, you you know, if you stand still you go back, don't you? and someone else will do it for you.

Andrew 25:09

Yeah, and just another thought I've had that was mentioned about volunteering in general. I started off with collections down in the museum stores, and on the wall we have a sign, I probably won't get words quite right, but something like if enthusiasm was a currency, we'd be rich, and that really sums up how while people enjoy volunteering, because it really is all about enthusiasm and we we bounce off each other and it feels good to be part of that team.

Louisa 25:36

Hi, I'm Louisa, and I volunteer at the Malton Museum.

Louise 25:40

Hi, I'm Louise, and I also volunteer at Malton Museum.

Derm Tanner 25:44

So, Louisa, let's let's come to you first. I understand you're a bit of a newbie here. You've you've only been here for a few months or so.

Louisa 25:50

Yeah, I've been wanting to volunteer at Malton Museum for a while, having excavated at the Vicus as part of my university degree, and I want to get a get into collections management and interpretation, so I thought it'd be perfect to come here. Malton is just full of Roman history, which I absolutely, and I want to be creative as well with collections and I want to learn how to engage with the public.

Derm Tanner 26:18

That's the key thing, isn't it? Because you can have all the knowledge in the world, but if you can't get that across to someone who doesn't have that knowledge, then it stays with you only.

Louisa 26:26

Yeah, exactly. So it's it's kind of just about I don't know, it's like reconnecting with why we study history, not just to keep it restricted to certain audiences, it's to promote it and kind of help it kind of continues the lives of those people in the past. It reconnects in quite a nice circle, which is really lovely for Malton because it's it has so much heritage. It's kind of encouraging you to stay a part of that and rebuild on it.

Derm Tanner 26:51

I think the other thing is is that we probably are more interested in history than we think we are. You know, you only have to say something oh yeah, that's good, and then they're away, aren't they? But because we are fascinated by what's come before us.

Louisa 27:04

Yeah, exactly. There's you see a lot of continuation with things, and history can kind of inform you how to live better now. Like, I'm running a Roman doll campaign to help fund the relocation of Malton Museum, and in that campaign I'm trying to teach especially a young audience, like young audience like children and families, about how the Romans were quite similar to us today. So, like looking at the Roman diet and the importance of cereal grains and things like that, which can actually contribute to our diet today, which people wouldn't think about, like making more homemade meals and thinking about the ingredients you're putting in your food, so it can have a positive impact on you now that you can learn from the past.

Derm Tanner 27:51

Wow, okay, that that's, that's opened up a million questions, which I don't have time for. Louise, it's come on onto you. You've been here around now. Fundraising, I hear, is the is the one of the things that you're in in involved in here?

Stories That Hook Visitors

Louise 28:04

In a roundabout way, that's what I'm doing at the moment, but and my life as a volunteer at the museum started out doing social media, which is now what Louisa does. But it's we got somebody that that knew what they were doing, then that was great. I handed that batter over. And since then I've been involved in the exhibition committee. We refresh the exhibition each year through the winter, picking out new elements of the history of Malton and the surrounding area, so that we can bring parts of our collection out of its storage. So we've got a lot of our collection is in store, and so it's nice to bring a few new things out to each year to tell a different story.

Derm Tanner 28:47

That's because you have more objects than you have rooms for.

Louise 28:52

That is exactly that. We have a lot more objects than we have the room to display and, and to tell the different stories. There are a myriad of stories about the history of Malton and Norton and round here, and at some points throughout history this area has been extremely important in one way or another, and so we always aim to tell a different story every year. I've been on the education committee, which is doing the outreach, going out to adult groups who want us to come and do a little evenings entertainment, so we bring our various things out that we've got to do those with, and they

Derm Tanner 29:30

What sort of things do you take with you?

Louise 29:31

Well, we've got we've got a couple of themed things. One of them is a little bit like give us a clue. So or, or the modern day television programme Would I lie to you? So basically we have a word which is something in history connected to what we have in part of our collection, part of the stories that we've told in the past, and it's an unusual word, sometimes they're really old and they're not in use anymore, and then we the three of us will stand up, take turns, and with each of us give a definition for that word, and then the audience has to decide which of us is telling the truth. That's a great idea. Yes, it's great. That goes down really well. It does, it does actually, yes, it does and we're two teams, it's us and them and then, of course, we do the schools outreach, which is where we , we have boxes for different time periods. There's a prehistoric, there's Bronze Age, and there's also a Roman Age of Kit kit, of course and quite often when schools have got the Roman Age kit out, then they will have us go and do a morning or an afternoon where there's three of us in the team, usually two ladies and a man. The man is Maximus, Maximus Decimus Meridius, and he comes in full Roman regal.

Derm Tanner 30:52

Father to a murdered wife

Louise 30:52

Yes, that's the one. That's him. He comes in full Roman regalia as a legionary legionary, and he scares the living daylights out of them, but they absolutely love him. He is the person they're

Speaker 3 31:05

all talking about. What's your favourite bit to the end? Maximus. Because Maximus has got swords and shields and clanking costume and so and he dresses them all up, and we do different things. So we tell them about daily life, we make mosaics with them, we do finds handling, and,

Derm Tanner 31:26

The schools will love you.

Louise 31:27

Oh, yeah, they do. It's fabulous, they can't wait for us to come and the ladies normally dress up in Rome costume as well. So, so they they they're absolutely their eyes are on stalks when we walk into the room, but it's a really, really rewarding morning or or afternoon. It's it's great fun.

Derm Tanner 31:43

So brilliant.

Louise 31:44

Yes, yes, it is.

Derm Tanner 31:45

So if volunteering was a natural progression for Louisa from her education from university, because it made sense, which is what you were saying before, yeah. What is it for you?

Louise 31:55

I think you've got to like history for a start, and you've got to be interested in the place that you live, and I think those two things then will lead you towards an organisation like this where people are also of like mind, but that they also want to share it because I feel that if we share our history out into the community and it makes people take pride in where they live, and I think ultimately that's when people enjoy living where they live and they talk about it to other people who move to the area or whatever, and you have a thriving town. But I think it's also important not to forget what you were, what has made your town and your people the the place it is today, and I think those those things, you know, there's some very, very important elements of history that have impacted Malton and made us the town that we are today, including of course the Romans. They're one of the most important things that happened. A lot of people don't realise the Romans were here, and that's why we started having the Roman festival each year it is a major fundraiser for the museum, but that's not the only reason to do it. It's about telling the Roman history story because we have a fort, it's covered over with grass, people don't realise it's there, but it's also one of the largest forts in Britain that we know of, half of which is covered over with castle gardens and some buildings, the other half is what people walk their dogs on and so we started having the Roman Festival to tell the history of the Romans in this area. It was a strategic place, it was a very, very important place for the Romans for almost the full time that they were in Roman Britain, which is about 400 years, and it was occupied for all of that time. So we know that it's a key place in Roman Britain, and so we're just trying to highlight that a bit.

Morag 33:49

Hello, I'm Morag, and I think I've been volunteering about twelve years for Malton Museum.

Derm Tanner 33:54

So a decent sentence at Malton Museum. Tell me what you've been doing, Moreg.

Morag 33:58

I've, I've been largely doing admin. There's a lot of background records that have to be kept, and personal records of all our volunteers, of course. Encouraging people to volunteer, but just getting them into the system, and I found it very enjoyable and I seem to have just been doing that year after year.

Derm Tanner 34:22

Volunteering for so many organizations is absolutely vital. And without the volunteers, so many organizations just do not function. So, so keeping track of them, making sure they don't disappear is it's a very important part of your job, I imagine.

Morag 34:40

Well, yes it is, and getting to know people and I think that's part of the, the pleasure of volunteering at the museum. You get to know so many nice people and you, you make a lot of friends, and I also do front of house from time to time as required. But admin is, is still quite a big chunk of what I do.

Derm Tanner 35:01

Okay, let me talk about front of house first, because if you're doing front of house, you've got to know your stuff.

Morag 35:05

Yes, but the exhibition's team set up the exhibition each year, and so when front of house come in and take over before we open, you read everything, absolutely everything that they have they've put up, and they're always super stories, and Margaret provides additional notes if we have any inquiries, and you learn and you are educated without realising it. But it I find that a a pleasure to just to learn every year the different exhibitions and then to pass them on to our our visitors.

Derm Tanner 35:42

Because as you said there the key is stories, isn't it? Because that's what gets us interested.

Final Reflections And Invitation

Morag 35:47

Absolutely. Just last week we have a mention of Septimius Severus a Roman emperor who based in York, campaigned up into Scotland, but eventually came back, settled in York, and he died in York. But his wife, Julia Domna, had a very ornate hairstyle, and to do that she needed hairpins, and she favoured Whitby Jet and we have a collection of Whitby Jet. So not people are not that interested in Roman emperors' commanders, but when you introduce and see, and this is a picture of Julia Domna, and these are her hairpins, it's, it makes a story, and and I think it's making a story, and just adding to somebody's interest, and there's so many other things. One one of the exhibitions in here is about not Malton Castle, because Malton Castle was decimated by Robert the Bruce, and there was a Jacobean mansion built in its place, and the rather unusual story that the two sisters wouldn't agree what they wanted to do, so after years of wrangling, the magistrate decreed, right, the house will be demolished and you'll have a heap of stones, and you'll have a heap of stones. Which to us that is dreadful, it's an awful solution. But I had a friend who was an architect, and she said, Well, it's not as bad as as you would think, because they had building material, and building materials could be sold. So they would have some money, but it's still a drastic solution to two sisters that wouldn't agree.

Derm Tanner 37:27

I have a confession to make that I have been to Malton many times, I've driven through Malton many times, I've walked around Malton many times, and until we went into that museum to do those interviews, I've never been anywhere near it and more fool me for that because I've missed out on a lot of stuff. I particularly take away from our chats. The whole cavalry, Roman cavalry, and the horse association with Malton. I'd never made that connection before, but it's fascinating to me.

Roy Player 37:56

A brilliant place, just again, I live near Malton and yeah, put my hand on my heart and go, you know. I haven't really gone in there and found out too much about it and I curse that I didn't do that, especially when my lad was growing up as well, because it was absolutely everything there about your local region and I would imagine this is across the whole country, that there are museums like this and people don't realise they exist. So do go and hunt them out because that connection, as you say, I mean Malton is renowned for the horses, but you didn't realise it was to do with the Romans and so many other things and they have volunteers, don't they, that actually go out. So it's not just sitting in a room looking at an object and giving people a little bit of advice when they walk round the museum, but they have these sort of projects going out into schools as well, which is just brilliant. So if you're a volunteer, so many opportunities for you to get involved with the local history and the community.

Derm Tanner 38:52

You've been listening to Grey Matters More, produced and presented by Roy Player and Derm Tanner. Please don't forget to like, follow, or subscribe. That way you'll never miss an episode.