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Hello Readers

My days at the museums are anything but normal and as usual full of variety and special experiences. I’ve spent a week in the functions office helping where I can and meeting the happy couples planning on having their marriage at the Royal Pavilion. Sometimes it’s just the soon to be in-laws visiting on behalf of the couple without them knowing.

I also started work in Facilities Management with Louise and Robin.

But I’ll talk more about Facilities another time; right now let me tell you of some weird and wonderful things that I’ve discovered up in the Booth Museum.

Myself and Cassie were asked to help the clearing of books and shelves in the Booth because of the new disabled access that’s going to be put in.

When we started to clear one shelf at a time it didn’t take long to start finding the hidden history of the Booth, we found VHS tapes of the Booth from the past and also found pictures of some of the staff in their youth at the Booth including our mentor John! (He hasn’t changed a bit!)

I later came across something hidden in the book shelf, what looked like to me a red snake skin in a long plastic bag. On further investigation I discovered that it was an original part of Mr Booth’s chair, the arm to be precise. It really came to life to me when I saw the picture that the Booth Museum has of Mr Booth himself sitting in it.

Here is a list of some of the other items found in the Booth:

Montgomery, the name given to the Rattlesnake head sealed in a plastic orb
A book titled “My thoughts on a pebble”
An endless supply of animal books dating back into the 18th Century.
DUST LIKE YOU WOULDN’T BELIEVE!
The list goes on.

It’s funny how you build a tolerance to dead animals after spending time at the Booth.

For instance when sitting down having my lunch the phone rang and was answered by one of the taxidermists, he advised the caller step by step in great detail on how best they should remove the skull and boil it in water and let it simmer for a day. He went on to explain that after this process it is much easier to remove the brain and cartilage so your left with nothing but the skull of the rabbit. (I may have got the details wrong but I did feel a bit sick!)

Needless to say if I had not already been at the Booth a few times there’s no way my meal would have been finished!


Zak