News

The Devil’s Porridge Museum has pledged to put families and young people at the heart of our museum through the Kids in Museums Manifesto! Each day this week we will highlight our engagement with one of the manifesto pledges!

Be welcoming. Create an environment where families can explore, have fun and learn together. Make sure staff and volunteers provide a warm welcome and make all interactions with visitors friendly and informative. Include things that can be touched and make labels clear to explain when they can’t. Welcome enthusiastic comments and always keep instructions positive.

At the Devil’s Porridge Museum we provide a free welcome talk and have friendly and passionate volunteers located around the museum itself to answer any questions and provide further information. There are a number of interactive aspects to the exhibits in the museum and objects that can be handled by visitors. There are also blue step stools spread throughout the museum to aid those smaller visitors who can’t quite see into all the cabinets and displays.

Our ‘Mammoth’ museum hunt will also be launched next week for young visitors and those young at heart to help them explore the museum.  Watch out for an exciting post about our Kids in Museum Mammoth hunt next week as our Summer of Fun gets underway.

On Tuesday March 5th, the Devil’s Porridge Museum welcomed 60 students from Dalry Primary, Carsphairn Primary and Kells Primary (Glenkins partnership).  They had been studying World War Two in lessons and came to the museum to experience some objects making the past that bit more tangible.

They had two different sessions in the morning: one session looked at air raids including the role of ARP wardens and the bombing of Gretna in 1941 while the other session considered all different types of rationing including the rationing of food, petrol and clothing.

In the afternoon, the students explored the museum itself by going inside an air raid shelter, tasting rationed foods, trying on World War Two era clothing, visiting a 1940s house and handling different historical objects.  The group also took a tour of the Ground Floor of the museum which is dedicated to the history of HM Factory Gretna in World War One.

One of their teachers emailed the museum to say: “Thank you so much for a wonderful day! A massive thank you to everyone that helped at the museum!  The pupils enjoyed it very much.”

Thanks especially to Sheila G and Eleanor for their work and to Steven for being so helpful on his second day!  To discuss your school visit email info@devilsporridge.org.uk.

This weekend has been a busy one for the team at the Devil’s Porridge Museum.  We had a really successful Burn’s Supper on Saturday night, see:

On Sunday, two of our young volunteers helped to install the new exhibition ‘Love in Wartime’.  They dressed mannequins with vintage wedding dresses, put up decorations, created display stands from foamboard, put up banners and recorded the objects on display in our object location file.  They were really helpful and seemed to enjoy learning the behind the scenes Museum business!

Here are some photos of Alex and Russell helping out.

Work was also going outside the Museum.  Tony and Richard worked on the telephone box outside of the Museum.  It has been there for a little while now and is getting some TLC to make it level, then it will be painted and fixed up (we are waiting on better weather to do this).  Here they are hard at work.

Our new exhibition, ‘Love in Wartime’ features in the current edition of Dumfries and Galloway Life magazine.  The article features in an interview with Judith Hewitt, Museum Manager and curator of the exhibition and features a look at some of the stories and accounts involved in the exhibition.

Love in Wartime opens on January 21st.