Story Category: Legacy

Mike Feist’s Camera Obscura Archive

This is a legacy story from an earlier version of our website. It may contain some formatting issues and broken links.

I was born not far from the Booth Museum of Natural History in 1943 and lived over a large garage in Preston Road, Brighton until I was about 10 years old. My first school, called Preston Primary (although an Infant School) was opposite Preston Manor and just around the corner from where George Hole, the telescope maker, later had his workshop. I then went to Balfour Road Primary School, from where I saw the eclipse of the Sun in 1954 from the playground. My family moved to Upper Portslade and, having passing the 11+, I spent a few rather unhappy years at the Grammar School, next to the West Blatchington Windmill leaving with some GCEs and not going on to University.

Diagram camera obscura_

I spent most of my working life doing clerical and warehouse jobs and another twenty years working at an electrical wholesaler’s in Hove and Portslade. I was living in Mile Oak, just down the hill from the Foredown Tower, when it was first opened as a Countryside Centre by Hove Borough Council in 1991. The building had been the water tower for the old Isolation Hospital in its suitably remote location and, as part of the renovations, a camera obscura was installed. It proved to be quite a tourist attraction as its telescopic lens and mirror reflected 360 degrees living views of the surrounding countryside onto a screening dish. It was also an ideal way of looking at eclipses something I was able to witness with the partial eclipse in 1996 and the full eclipse in 2003.

I started working at Foredown Tower as a volunteer and finally became a staff member. During my very enjoyable years of working there, I gathered an enormous amount of information on camera obscuras from all over the world and it was this which became the Camera Obscura Archive which is now held at the Brighton History Centre. It includes correspondence and photographs from as far afield as Bondi Beach in Australia; Chattanooga in the USA; Fish Hoek, South Africa; Jerez, Spain and Kyoto in Japan along with material on all the camera obscuras that we know about throughout the United Kingdom. It’s an ongoing archive as members of staff at the Brighton History Centre continue to keep it updated with any new information that they or I come across.

My research into sundials (one was specially made for the Millennium and is on the Foredown Tower) and Timeballs (there is one in Brighton on the Clocktower) were also given to the History Centre, along with the complete set of ‘Towering Sky’, the newsletter of the Foredown Tower Astronomy Group, which I edited for over a decade.

Mike Feist

Mike Feist’s Camera Obscura Archive and his research into sundials and timeballs, is available to view at Brighton History Centre, Brighton Museum & Art Gallery.

Willins’ Whistles

Exterior of Brighton Museum & Art Gallery

This is a legacy story from an earlier version of our website. It may contain some formatting issues and broken links.

The whistles pictured in this blog are from the collection of A J Willins (1878-1950). The collection was donated to Brighton Museum & Art Gallery by his wife, Mary Willins, on his death.

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The 454 whistles were gathered in Britain but originate from all over the world and date from between 1780 and 1934. At home, Willins displayed his collection in a cabinet with little drawers and often took them out to show visitors. It is not clear why Willins formed his collection but he was clearly interested in the diversity of whistle types and their different purposes as he compiled a catalogue of the whistles dividing them into thirteen categories according to their function. The catalogue was also donated in 1950.

The collection has whistles for every occasion. Some have a practical purpose, such as a bosun’s whistle, whilst others, like a bone whistle with a microscopic lens showing views of the Royal Pavilion and the Chain Pier, are simply beautiful souvenirs. The collection also includes toy and novelty whistles like a porcelain eggcup whistle in the shape of a rooster driving a car.

A selection of the whistles were displayed at Brighton Museum & Art Gallery December 1930 – March 1931 and in 1998 another selection was exhibited under the title ‘Just for the Shrill of It…Mr Willins’ Collection of Whistles’.

A Poem for the Pavilion

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Earlier today, we were visited by the Beech class of St Giles School, Horsted Keynes. The pupils wrote this poem about a Royal Pavilion dragon. We like it a lot, and thought we’d share it with you.

The Brighton Pavilion Dragon

Body as flexible as a gymnast,
as bendy as a rubber tube.
Scales as strong as a suit of armour,
smooth as they can be.

Lashing tail, deadly as cobra’s poison,
coils of silver-plated muscle
glistening in the light of the chandelier
As long as a giant python.

Teeth as sharp as diamond daggers.
Forked tongue, gritty like sandpaper.
Bloodshot eyes as big as bowling balls.
Volcanic fire like a scorching oven.

Wings patterned with a leaf-like structure,
twisting and turning like shiny, leather parachutes.
Silver palm trees, bony like a skeleton,
shimmering wildly under the moonlight.

By Beech class, St Giles School, Horsted Keynes

Well done Beech class!

Soe Naing, Burmese Artist

Exterior of Brighton Museum & Art Gallery

This is a legacy story from an earlier version of our website. It may contain some formatting issues and broken links.

Thanks to the 2011 Brighton Festival which has positioned Burma as a central point of focus, the people of Brighton and visitors alike are currently being offered a wonderful insight in to Burma– its culture, people and politics. Within this context I would like to highlight some works of art by a Burmese artist called Soe Naing, whose art expresses the very spirit of Burma.

The World Art collection at Royal Pavilion & Museums, Brighton & Hove includes a small but vibrant collection of Soe Naing’s drawings, paintings and papercuts all of which express his creativity and energy. His paintings are populated by strange and often sinister creatures which appear to incorporate both human and animal forms. These oddly hybrid creatures were inspired by mythological creatures seen by the artist in temple wall paintings in the ancient city of Bagan, but in my opinion, the style in which they are painted gives them an almost child-like innocence.

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Soe Naing’s use of vivid colours and visible brushstrokes invest his paintings with a real sense of energy and spontaneity. Amongst these brightly-coloured brushstrokes he also creates inky, black, calligraphic marks which give the impression of facial features, claws, ears, talons and tongues. Along with colour you can see that the expressive quality of line is important to Soe Naing. Every brushstroke is applied with a sense of urgency and this is also the case with his pencil drawings. These appear to have been made impulsively as if the artist were drawing automatically, without considered planning.

I absolutely love Soe Naing’s work because his style is so unique, full of energy, and has a childlike quality to it which gives it such originality.

Royal Pavilion & Museums is grateful for the assistance of Networking & Initiatives for Culture & the Arts (NICA) in acquiring these works.

Sarah Cook World Art volunteer

At Work With… Gerald Legg

Booth Museum of Natural History, 194 Dyke Road, Brighton, City of Brighton and Hove, England. Opened in 1874 The Romanesque Revival building is listed at Grade II by English Heritage

This is a legacy story from an earlier version of our website. It may contain some formatting issues and broken links.

… Gerald Legg, Keeper of Natural Sciences

Of exploration, empire, butterflies and beer

Having worked at the Booth Museum of Natural History for more years than I like to admit to I have had the unique opportunity and privilege to work with natural history collections and be involved with all manner of things associated with the natural world.

The collections are far more than just dead specimens or their remains tucked away in a drawer or sitting in a cabinet on display. They have their obvious ‘uses’ such as being examples of life on Earth that anyone can see and appreciate. They can help us understand an organism: where it occurs or occurred; its variations in form and structure; how its distribution or form has changed over time (a good reason to have many of the apparently ‘same’ types). As new techniques arise they can be a mine of information, e.g. analysing for heavy metals such as lead can show where and when industrial activity has polluted the environment. It may be possible to extract DNA and gain an understanding of the relationships of organisms or even determine its genome which, for a rare species may be invaluable in the future. One of the most useful aspects of the collection is its help in identifying specimens submitted to the museum by members of the public, councils, the police and others. Books with pictures or detailed ‘keys’ to help tell you what you have are all very well, but a good ‘reference’ collection is the ultimate identification guide. We do a lot of identification work and our collections have proven invaluable in helping with this.

Specimens have considerable aesthetic value too; their colours and shapes help to enrich the world around us even when they are no longer flying or running wild but in a glass case in the museum. Many of our specimens have and continue to provide inspiration for artists and students of art, from a whole eagle to parts of the detail on a microscope slide of a piece of rock.

Moving away from the specimens themselves they can illustrate how we have come to understand the world through exploration and in the case of many European powers, particularly Britain, colonial expansion and exploration. When you start to examine and think about a specimen it can take on a whole new lease of life and open up a completely different world to the ‘lovely or useful specimen’ one. Take a look at the label (one or more) attached to a specimen and you can see more than just a name of a place, date and name of who collected the specimen. Those labels say far more – you only have to use your imagination and do a little research. Take one of our Birdwing Butterflies: Troides amphrysus amphrysus BC34196.

Troides amphrysus amphrysus,  BC34196

Troides amphrysus amphrysus, BC34196

It is obviously very beautiful, as are all the Birdwing butterflies; hence they are very collectable which has not helped their survival. Many Birdwings are now very rare and driven to this state through loss of habitat and the depravations of collectors. It occurs in Java and Bali and is strictly protected locally and is also listed in Appendix II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), and Appendix B of the EU regulation on trading with species of wild Fauna and Flora.

Now take a closer look at the label on the pin:

Three labels, a printed one, probably produced by Godman & Salvin with a date when they received it (May 1895), a hand written one, which, judging by the writing on the back, was made apparently by recycling an old label, that matches Wallace’s hand writing and one with our accession number.

Java. amphrysus

Godman-Salvin coll. 95-5 Java

Wallace.

Bates coll.

Wow! What a history, so simply written here in a few words.

This magnificent butterfly was caught around 1861 in Java, during the time when Victorian explorers were probing the world for the Empire, wealth and knowledge. Just imagine the life this insect had led before its capture. Conjure up a hot tropical forest, which over a hundred and ten years ago would have been difficult, dangerous and expensive to get to, the butterfly flitting high in the canopy. It descends into a clearing created by a fallen giant tree and is caught by a local inhabitant, pinched (to kill it), and slipped into a basket made of a local palm. Taking it back home the inhabitant awaits the explorer to visit and a deal is done. The explorer carefully puts it into a specially folded envelope, writes some details of when and where it was caught then places into an insect-proof box and tries to keep it dry and free of mould. Months pass and the explorer returns to Britain, sorts his catches and carefully mounts or ‘sets’ the butterfly. It is remarkable it has survived the perilous journey aboard a sailing vessel for months on end. Not all collections survived as we shall see.

The explorer/collector in this case is no dealer or everyday person he is Alfred Russell Wallace, OM, FRS (8 January 1823 – 7 November 1913), naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist and biologist and is best known for independently proposing a theory of evolution due to natural selection that prompted Charles Darwin to publish his own theory. Wallace did extensive fieldwork, first in the Amazon River basin and then in the Malay Archipelago, where he identified the Wallace Line that divides the Indonesian archipelago into two distinct parts, one in which animals closely related to those of Australia are common, and one in which the species are largely of Asian origin. In 1869 he published an important work ‘The Malay Archipelago, The land of the orang-utan, and the bird of paradise. A narrative of travel, with sketches of man and nature’. In this book Wallace gives an account of his three months in Java in 1861 when this butterfly was probably collected. In this book (available on line as an ebook) Wallace says:

In the east of Java I had suffered from the intense heat and drought of the dry season, which had been very inimical to insect life. Here I had got into the other extreme of damp, wet, and cloudy weather, which was equally unfavourable. During the month which I spent in the interior of West Java, I never had a really hot fine, day throughout. It rained almost every afternoon, or dense mists came down from the mountains, which equally stopped collecting, and rendered it most difficult to dry my specimens, so that I really had no chance of getting a fair sample of Javanese entomology.

He was considered the 19th century’s leading expert on the geographical distribution of animal species and is sometimes called the ‘father of biogeography;’ Wallace was one of the leading evolutionary thinkers of the 19th century and made a number of other contributions to the development of evolutionary theory besides being co-discoverer of natural selection. These included the concept of warning colouration in animals, and the Wallace effect, a hypothesis on how natural selection could contribute to speciation by encouraging the development of barriers against hybridization.

The specimen did not stay with him but was given to his friend and co-explorer Henry Walter Bates FRS FLS FGS (Leicester, 8 February 1825 – London, 16 February 1892) naturalist and explorer who gave the first scientific account of mimicry in animals. Bates was most famous for his expedition to the Amazon with Wallace in 1848. Wallace returned in 1852, but lost his collection (fortunately he did not loose his Malay Archipelago material!) in a shipwreck. When Bates arrived home in 1859 after a full eleven years, he had sent back over 14,000 species (mostly of insects) of which 8,000 were new to science.

Like many collections Bates’ was broken up and dispersed with specimens going to many notable collectors and museums of the time. In this case specimen BC33969 was acquired by Godman and Salvin a pair of naturalists who were more well-known for their ornithology but whom also amassed an extensive butterfly collection and together described many new species and published over 120 papers on butterflies.

Osbert Salvin FRS (February 25, 1835 – June 1, 1898) was a naturalist, best known for co-authoring Biologia Centrali-Americana (1879-1915) with Frederick DuCane Godman, a 52 volume encyclopaedia on the natural history of Central America. Salvin was born in Finchley, the second son of Anthony Salvin, architect, of Hawksfold, Sussex. He was educated at Westminster and Trinity Hall, Cambridge, taking his degree in 1857. Shortly afterwards he accompanied his second cousin by marriage, Henry Baker Tristram, in a natural history exploration of Tunisia and eastern Algeria. Their account of this trip was published in The Ibis in 1859 and 1860. In the autumn of 1857 he made the first of several visits to Guatemala, returning there with Godman in 1861. It was during this journey that the Biologia Centrali-Americana was planned.

In 1871 he became editor of The Ibis. He was appointed to the Strickland Curatorship in the Universityof Cambridge, and produced his Catalogue of the Strickland Collection. He was one of the original members of the British Ornithologists’ Union and produced the volumes on the Trochilidae and the Procellariidae in the Catalogue of Birds in the British Museum. One of his last works was the completion of Lord Lilford’s Coloured Figures of British Birds (1897). Salvin was a Fellow of the Royal Society, the Linnean, Zoological and Entomological Societies, and at the time of his death was Secretary of the B.O.U. The Godman-Salvin Medal, a prestigious award of the British Ornithologists ‘Union, is named after him and Godman.

Salvin is also listed as one of the pioneer photographers. He carried a camera on his expeditions, photographing indigenous peoples, ruins and other scenes.

His colleague, Frederick DuCane Godman D.C.L., F.R.S., F.L.S., F.G.S., F.R.G.S., F.E.S., F.Z.S., M.R.I., F.R.H.S., M.B.O.U. (15 January 1834 – 19 February 1919) was the lepidopterist of this ornithologist pair. Godman is best known for his co-authoring of Biologia Centrali-Americana (1879-1915) with Osbert Salvin. He also published The Natural History of the Azores (1870) and a Monograph of the Petrels (1907-10). Godman was the third son of Joseph Godman, of Park Hatch, Surrey and was educated at Eton College and Trinity College, Cambridge. At Cambridge he became acquainted with Alfred Newton and Salvin. The custom of these ornithological friends to meet and talk over their recent acquisitions led to the foundation of the British Ornithologists’ Union (BOU) in November 1857. Godman was Secretary of the BOU from 1870 to 1882 and from 1889 to 1897, and President from 1896. A partner in Whitbread & Co. (the beer connection!), Godman inherited an ample fortune which allowed him to travel the world. In 1883, Godman went on to become the developer of South Lodge, a neo-Jacobean style country house estate in Sussex.

So, a simple label has links to many great names in Victorian science and exploration:

Wallace, Bates,Darwin, Godman, Salvin, Strictland, Tristram and even a brewery – Whitbread & Co.!

The Booth Museum and Brighton Taxidermy

Booth Museum of Natural History, 194 Dyke Road, Brighton, City of Brighton and Hove, England. Opened in 1874 The Romanesque Revival building is listed at Grade II by English Heritage

This is a legacy story from an earlier version of our website. It may contain some formatting issues and broken links.

By the time the Booth Museum was built in 1874 Brighton had three established taxidermy companies and the Museum has examples from all three in its collections. The history of taxidermy is told, in part, through the exhibition ‘Life in Death’  which currently forms part of the main gallery.

Swaysland & Son (1814 – 1951)

The exact date of the establishment of this company is difficult to pin down.

It would seem that the firm had its origins with Stephen Swaysland a ‘Wheelwright & Bird Fancier’ and that he probably supplied live caged birds. His son George went from gardener to taxidermist. He became an accomplished naturalist and was acquainted with many prominent scientists of the day such as Charles Darwin, William Borrer and William Yarrell.

George is actually mentioned in Darwin’s “The Descent of Man”. He claims to have mounted several of the exhibits in the Bramber Museum’s “Who Killed Cock Robin?”

His three sons Henry, George and Walter remained in the family business. The firm Swaysland & Son gradually ceased taxidermy and went back to selling caged birds. Walter’s son Walter continued running the business until it ceased to operate in 1951.

The Booth collections include 23 specimens that are attributed to the Swaysland family firm either as taxidermists or as collectors.

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Pratt & Sons (1851 – 1952)

The founder of the firm of H Pratt, H Pratt & Sons, and finally Pratt & Sons was Henry Pratt (born 1818).

Their Brighton premises were at 35 Duke Street, 44 Ship Street, 11 North Street Quadrant and finally 15 Cranbourne Street.

Two of Henry’s children, John and Edwin, stayed in the family business. His oldest son, Henry, became a successful clockmaker in Brighton. John and Edwin both married and one of each brother’s sons, confusingly also called John and Edwin, eventually took over the business.

This was the last commercial taxidermy firm operating in Brighton. It ceased on the death of Edwin Albert Pratt in 1952. The Booth Museum includes in its collections around 50 items attributed to the Pratt family firm.

Brazenor Brothers (1863/8 – 1937)

This successful family firm was started by Robert Brazenor (1819 – 1901).

He and his wife had seven children, five of whom survived into adulthood. They all entered the family business though the girls worked in the furrier shop alongside their mother.

They briefly operated at 20 Duke Street, and afterwards they moved to 39 Lewes Road where they remained till they closed down.

Robert’s style of taxidermy could be described as ‘more enthusiastic than strictly accurate’. His representations of ‘The Babe in the Woods’ adequately demonstrates this.

Brazenor Brothers undertook a great deal of osteological work for the Rottingdean based collector Frederick W Lucas, much of which can be seen in the skeleton gallery in the Booth Museum. One of their biggest tasks was the preparation of the Killer Whale skeleton in the Booth Museum. They undertook several other preparations of large material such as the 20.7 meter long Rorqual. This was sectioned and allowed to rot down in specially built vats on Race Hill. Eventually the skeleton was erected on Boscombe Pier, near Bournemouth, from where it was discarded.

For many years Alfred, the youngest son, was the mainstay of the business. In this he was joined by his son Herbert Ferris Brazenor. Herbert joined the staff of Brighton Museum & Art Gallery and rose to become Deputy Director. He died in 1972.

Jeremy Adams, retired Assistant Keeper at the Booth Museum

The Booth Museum of British Birds

Booth Museum of Natural History, 194 Dyke Road, Brighton, City of Brighton and Hove, England. Opened in 1874 The Romanesque Revival building is listed at Grade II by English Heritage

This is a legacy story from an earlier version of our website. It may contain some formatting issues and broken links.

Booth Museum, Brighton

The single most important source of information about Booth’s collection is the publication “Catalogue of the Cases of Birds in the Dyke Road Museum, Brighton”. This was written by Booth with additional notes by Arthur Foster Griffith.

The catalogue states that there are 1,498 specimens of mounted birds recorded as having been collected by him. These are vital pieces of information as subsequent to Booth’s death many changes have been made to the museum, new cases have been built, specimens have been inserted into some original cases and some specimens have been removed. In addition, specimen taxonomy has also been updated.

See images of the bird dioramas on our flickr stream

Jeremy Adams, retired Assistant Keeper at the Booth Museum

Thomas Parkin, MA, JP, FGS, FZS, FLS, 1845 – 1932

Booth Museum of Natural History, 194 Dyke Road, Brighton, City of Brighton and Hove, England. Opened in 1874 The Romanesque Revival building is listed at Grade II by English Heritage

This is a legacy story from an earlier version of our website. It may contain some formatting issues and broken links.

Prolific collector

During his lifetime Thomas Parkin assembled a large and significant collection of eggs. The collection was, in the majority, purchased, chiefly from the Stevens Auction Rooms in Covent Garden. Parkin’s collection along with all of his catalogues and a considerable amount of other documentation was acquired by Hastings Museum on his death and subsequently transferred to the BoothMuseum in 1998.

Educated at Rugby, Trinity College where he was awarded his Masters degree in 1871 and called to the Bar of the Inner Temple in 1874, Parkin was one of the founding members of the Hastings & St. Leonards Natural History Society and was elected its first president.

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Parkin travelled extensively. In 1887 he sailed toAustralia, New Zealand and Tasmania via the Cape of Good Hope collecting seabirds en route. He returned via Cape Horn. The seabirds were given to the British Museum. He also collected in Southern Spain and in the southern states of the USA and made trips to North Africa, living briefly inParis before returning to England for the cricket!

Parkin’s catalogues are filled with data, original labels, receipts and letters (including original envelopes) from various donors or other ornithologists. There is an alphabetised list of oologists with whom he had been in contact and many notes on various egg collectors, photographs of them and details of their gravestones. The catalogues also include many laboriously hand copied articles from miscellaneous journals relevant to the eggs in his collection.

Parkin also served in the Royal Cumberland Militia and the catalogue includes a photograph of him in uniform sporting his very fine waxed moustache.

The Booth Museum collections contain 4,190 specimens collected by Parkin. 4,160 of these are eggs which are scrupulously catalogued with find dates, localities and details of earlier collectors all recorded. In addition, there are seventeen examples of Dodo bones collected by George Clarke in La Mare aux Songes inMauritius. Parkin also acquired the egg of a Great Auk, the holy grail of egg collectors.

Jeremy Adams, retired Assistant Keeper at the Booth Museum

Passing the Ball: Brighton to Mali and Back

Image of a home-made football from Mali, on display in Brighton Museum

This is a legacy story from an earlier version of our website. It may contain some formatting issues and broken links.

Brighton Museum & Art Gallery has been working with young people in Mali to help create content for a new World Stories gallery, opening in June 2012 to mark the London 2012 Games.

Developed in partnership with young people, this new permanent gallery will explore the changing world around us, drawing on Brighton Museum and Art Gallery’s stunning collections from Africa, Asia, the Pacific and Americas, alongside newly-commissioned contemporary art and artefacts.

As the Youth Engagement Officer on this project I have been working with young people to engage them with the Museum’s collections and involve them in developing this exciting new space.

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The football story

One of the new displays will explore what football means in young people’s lives in Brighton & Hove and in West Africa: how football is embedded in local cultures; what it means to be a fan and the role football plays in bringing people together. Museum staff are working closely with Brighton & Hove Albion’s community and international development programmes, to involve young people in Brighton and in Mali, in West Africa, in developing this story.

In March 2011 I spent 10 days in Bamako, the capital city of Mali, finding out what football means to the young people who live there and exploring some of the issues surrounding the sport. Our project partner in Mali is Coaching for Hope, a UK-based charity that uses football to create better futures for young people in West and Southern Africa. Together we organised a two-day youth football tournament, conducted filmed interviews and ran activities with the young people to explore the topic.

During my trip I was helped by Sebastian Morua, who works for Brighton & Hove Albion and had been delivering a youth leadership programme in Bamako with Coaching For Hope. The course is designed to create a platform for youth advocacy and encourage the promotion of the youth voice in the community through football. During my trip I worked with this group of ‘young leaders’.

Football in Mali

When I first arrived in Bamako I was taken aback by the overwhelming presence of football. To say football is everywhere is an understatement. People play football wherever they can and wasteland pitches can be found on every corner. In the late afternoon sun countless matches kick off in neighbourhoods across the city and they all attract their fair share of spectators.

As I walked through the busy market in Bamako, trying to dodge the mopeds, every other person was wearing a football shirt, and the streets were saturated with stalls selling football boots and shirts. When you travel by car, you only have to slow down for a minute before someone appears at your window offering to sell you a football.

During my trip I wanted to collect some objects for the museum display that reflect the presence of football in everyday Malian life and there certainly were plenty to choose from. Images of famous footballers adorn many everyday items such as school books, bumper stickers and playing cards. The faces of Malian players Mahamadou Diarra and Frédéric Kanouté are particularly popular, as well as West African players such as Chelsea’s Didier Drogba, and Manchester City’s Yaya Touré.

Young people

On my second day I met Adama Yéyé (known as Yéyé), one of the young leaders, who volunteered to help with the organising of the tournament and the filming project. Yéyé is originally from Burkina Faso but he now goes to school in Bamako and is also a jewellery-maker by trade. When I asked him how old he is, an interesting conversation followed. He said ‘My real age is 22 but my football age is 14’. Sebastian explained that it is common for young people to have younger ‘football ages’ to make them appear better youth players to football scouts. This is a widespread problem in African football.

I wanted to film young people talking about what football means to them and their aspirations so we met with the young leaders for a group interview. The group of 12 young people (3 young women and 9 young men) were incredibly friendly and keen to contribute to the project. I was inspired to find that disabled people seem to be well-integrated in the wider community, in and that many hearing people communicate through sign language with their deaf friends. In the group there were 2 deaf young people – Gaoussou, 18 and Moussa, 19. They were confident members of the group; the first to answer my questions and keen to share their football experiences with me.

Collecting for the new gallery

After school one day a group of children were having a kick around on some wasteland. I had been told that young people often make their own football if they don’t have one so I asked the group how they would do it. They decided they would show me. They gathered together to discuss their task very seriously and then set about collecting rubbish to build the ball. A discarded sock formed the structure, charcoal the base and plastic bags the layers. Once the ball was deemed to be the right weight and shape, they quickly divided into teams and started playing football to demonstrate the effectiveness of their ball. The sock ball came back to England with me (much to their bemusement) and we took them to the market to buy them a brand new football.

Many young people play football in jelly shoes (or plastiques) because they are cheap and durable and I wanted to buy a used pair for the museum collection. I set off with Yéyé on a mission to find some. We had been in the taxi only a few minutes when Yéyé spotted a young person casually walking down the road, swinging his plastic shoes. We pulled over and, a brief conversation later, Omar jumped in. Although I wasn’t entirely sure how much Yéyé had explained (due to the language barrier!) Omar seemed happy with the arrangement. We set off to the market to buy him brand new football boots in exchange for his plastiques, had a coffee and said goodbye – but not before Yéyé and Omar had swapped numbers and arranged to play football.

The football tournament

The tournament took place in a huge walled pitch at the heart of the Badema Lafia neighbourhood. The pitch was marked out using charcoal and nets were hung on the goal posts. The competition was due to start at 7am on the Saturday morning. In Mali football is played early in the morning or in the evening to avoid the extreme daytime heat. I visited during the hottest season and temperatures reached a sweltering 40 degrees. Football matches always attract a crowd and shortly after we arrived children from the area gathered to watch the action. There were eight teams competing from neighbourhoods across Bamako. They included a team of young women and a team of deaf young people.

The competition is tough and is undertaken with the utmost seriousness. Over the next two days I got a real sense of the commitment of the coaches and the young people to the game.

At the side of the pitch one young player explained what the game meant to him: ‘I’m a footballer here. I like football because it’s known by everyone. It’s a sport for rich and poor, and disabled people too. It helps me keep in shape and later it’ll help me earn a living too.’

Next steps

My trip to Mali was an interesting and inspiring one and I thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to meet young people who are passionate and committed to football. Brighton Museum & Art Gallery will now follow this up with a parallel project involving young people in Brighton & Hove: conducting interviews, making a film and collecting objects for the new display. We are working with Albion in The Community to stage a youth tournament in the summer 2011.

If you are age 14-25 and would like to find out more about the World Stories project, and how you could get involved, please contact me on 07504221330 or worldstories@brighton-hove.gov.uk

Hazel Welch, Youth Engagement Officer, Brighton Museum & Art Gallery

The Golden Eagle – Aquila chrysaetos

Booth Museum Golden Eagle diorama

This is a legacy story from an earlier version of our website. It may contain some formatting issues and broken links.

The Golden Eagle (Aquila chrysaetos) in flight is one of the most spectacular natural sights and is the second largest bird of prey in Great Britain. It is found from North America through Europe, and across Asia into Japan.

Although once found in England, centuries of persecution have meant that this magnificent bird is now restricted to Scotland, although some have recently been re-introduced to Ireland. To mark the start of Springwatch 2011 – and with golden eagles a popular subject for Springwatch’s ‘nest-cams’ – we introduce the Booth Museum’s Golden Eagle displays, given pride of place at the front of the museum.

Returning with Prey

Returning with Prey

This grand case is one of the most impressive of Edward Booth’s original bird displays. The taxidermy examples have been arranged in accordance with the natural behaviour Booth observed and painted whilst hunting for the birds in Scotland, during the 1870s. The display shows an eagle on its nest, with its mate returning with prey for the chicks. They are displayed in a mock-up of the mountainous terrain of the Scottish Highlands, where the birds were collected.

This exhibit is one of three Golden Eagle cases on display at the museum, showing the birds in a variety of behaviours and life stages, and all created for Edward Booth himself. The taxidermy, like most of Booth’s original birds, is of a very high standard, with each individual looking lifelike and well preserved. The exhibits at the Booth Museum are now one of the only legal ways to get a close up view of a Golden Eagle nest.

The Golden Eagle – Aquila chrysaetos

The Golden Eagle – Aquila chrysaetos

Golden Eagles are monogamous and build large nests which they will return to each year. They lay between one to four eggs, but usually only one or two chicks survive to fledge. Their diet consists mainly of small mammals, but they have been observed taking much larger prey, including driving full grown deer over cliffs. They will also take birds up to the size of swans, and will feed on carrion and large insects.

The Golden Eagle is historically revered throughout the Northern Hemisphere. It is considered to be greatly mystical in native cultures across North America, and their feathers are said to be as important to Native American tribes as the crucifix is to Christians. In Mongolian and Kazakh tribal communities The Golden Eagle is still sent after foxes and wolves, and many were owned by Genghis Khan, who was a keen falconer. In Europe, the Golden Eagle was reserved for Emperors and was the symbol of the Roman Empire. It has been used in the heraldry of many member states of the medieval Holy Roman Empire and is the national bird of Kazakhstan and Mexico. In 2004 it was voted as the new national bird for Scotland in a public poll. It was adopted as the standard of Napoleon’s Grand Armée, and the Saladin Golden Eagle is prominent on the Egyptian flag.

Despite this, the Golden Eagle has been persecuted by people for centuries. In Britain they were historically slaughtered by game keepers and farmers for taking livestock. Although now illegal, and subject to severe penalties, eagles are still poisoned or shot, despite a number of studies showing their impact on livestock is minimal. Although endangered in the UK and many other European countries, the Golden Eagle is not considered to be at risk internationally, thanks to healthy populations in North America and Asia.

Lee Ismail, Curator of Natural Sciences