The End of an Era!

Well its over – my time as a student of Public History at Royal Holloway has come to an end. And what a year it has been! There have been highs and there have been lows but what a ride?! When it all began a year ago I was anxious about making the move from history to public history.  It was something I was interested in and passionate about, but I wasn’t quite sure how I’d make that adjustment. Soon enough all those anxieties were appeased; I was in my element and didn’t look back.

The course has covered a wide range of elements, including oral history, a skills project and the creation of a radio programme. We’ve also written a conventional dissertation assessing the condition of the heritage industry and analysing how heritage institutions respond to current challenges. While finally there was the final project – our own individual masterpieces of public history. (For those with insider knowledge – yes I did skip over the Concepts module, for it is now a vague and very distant memory!) The creative elements of this course have allowed me to pursue elements of history that are particularly interesting for me and along the way I’ve met and made contact with some truly fascinating people. So, with that in mind there have been a few highlights from the year which really stick out for me and I really just wanted to share them with you.

The first part that really sticks out is the oral history interviews I conducted back in the winter term. I had no idea that there was so much involved in carrying out oral history and while that made for slightly daunting task, once you’ve got your head around it and actually get going, it’s fantastic. I’m a chatty person anyway and I like to hear about people’s stories, yet in this setting you’re potentially being invited in to some quite personal or intimate moments in that person’s life and I hadn’t really appreciated that before being taught this module by one of the best! It’ a valuable historical approach for making inclusive history and it’s definitely something I would look at doing again in the future. Anyway, I digress. So, in keeping with my interest in the history of the wild animal trade and zoological collections, I was fortunate to be able to interview two zoo keepers, one now retired with over 50 years’ experience and the other still in the job, with 30 years’ experience. Research cannot compare to the unique insight these individuals had to offer and I learnt so much about how zoos work behind the scenes, and for a historian in this field, that was a really valuable experience. I know there is this air of hesitation for zoos to open up about their history and I understand the reason for that and it conflicting with their current principles, but that evolution is a hugely interesting process and getting to know more about that from the perspective of those who helped to assist in that process, was one of my favourite parts of the year.

The second has to be the radio programme! For this I chose to look at the effect of WW2 on animals, and the story that began to emerge was not one I’d expected. The final programme looked at the impact on pets rather than the unique uses of animals in the war effort and it was a really enlightening area to look at. Having been taught the history of WW2 all through school and right up to university level, you think you know it all – or at least have a good grasp on it. But in doing this programme the view I had that animals can offer alternative ways of looking at the past was really reinforced, because in researching this programme and speaking with experts, I realised that so much more went on during the war, especially on the Home Front, than I could ever have imagined. I don’t think I’d ever asked before, what happened to peoples pets, or to the animals in zoos? You just don’t do you – when you think of war you think of the human experience and not the animal one. So yes, not only was the topic one I was completely enthused by, but in searching for speakers I also made valuable contacts – because as much as this course is about expanding knowledge, it’s also about getting to grips with the professional world; and making contacts and exchanging information is hugely important to that process. 

The feedback I had for this programme put the icing on the cake, because I’m not really creative or musical and so to be told I “have a good ear” was something I could gloat about to my musically talented younger brother! It was just a really enjoyable experience; taking a concept, researching it and conducting interviews, and finally editing it together into a programme that people want to listen too.

As a final note, I have to talk about the final project and the pop-up exhibition I curated on the history of the wild animal trade. In pursuing ambitious plans for this project and trying to create as many opportunities as possible, I made contact with numerous institutions, not all successfully, but those that were met with positive responses had and continue to have, the potential to be hugely exciting. Whether I really do create a larger installation, or manage to take my research to a new medium and new audience, I don’t know. Who knows what the future has in store but it’s all good experience and adds to this remarkable journey.

Furthermore, hosting Who Let the Lions Out? at LMA last Friday was perhaps the most fitting way to end what has been a remarkable year. I’d been planning this event since February, secured speakers, conducted research and recruited an audience – it was hard work but what a way to finish! I’ve been going on about the fact that the history of animals, or however you want to phrase it, is somewhat new and to have an event where that is the focus and to be responsible for that event, gave me a real sense of accomplishment. I really felt like I’d achieved something and it confirmed that for me this is the path I want to follow. I do want to do the PhD and get this largely untold story out there. I’m enthused and excited about what lies ahead and the MA has equipped me with many of the skills I need to embrace every opportunity. So watch this space…

Reflections on Our Zoo: Animal historian and nature lover in conflict.

As a young historian with an interest in the history of zoological collections and the wild animal trade, I was pleased to hear that the BBC had been working on a new drama series Our Zoo which would look at the creation of Chester Zoo in the 1930s. However, as I sat watching it last night I realised I had mixed emotions about the programme. On the one hand I was somewhat glad that it was exposing this rather new area of historical research to a wider audience, but on the other I found that it somewhat conflicted with my views on animal welfare and the treatment of captive animals. In that moment, it dawned on me that by pursuing the line of research that I am, it becomes difficult not to appear to be glorifying something that was very much of its time and that those actions can actually come into conflict with modern views and expectations.

I was aware that CAPS had begun a petition against the BBC using taxpayers money to fund the use of animals as a sources of entertainment. And actually, it wasn’t until then that I realised (rather stupidly) that companies still exist that ‘own’ animals purely to hire them out for the purposes of entertainment, and that made me feel both sad and angry. When I first started this research I expected things to have been very different in the past to what they are today. I really expected our attitudes and treatments of animals to have changed dramatically, yet while to a certain extent this is true and our knowledge of animal care and biology is vastly improved, the more research and reading that I do, the more I am struck by the striking similarities and how actually, very little has changed. Animals are still seen as sources of entertainment and spectacle, even though renewed emphasis has been placed on conservation and preservation.

Through my research I’ve read a lot about animals having been imported as sources of entertainment and curiosity for the public and I know that this is what it was like at the time, but with a modern mind set, watching a recreation of those attitudes just felt wrong because to recreate them, you have to act them out. For example, witnessing lions performing circus tricks and jumping through hoops in fire and in the trailer for the next episode, bears being caged/chained in a cave, just made me feel really uncomfortable. I disagree with the use of animals in circuses in modern society and don’t ever wish to see animals chained, so the fact that this was done for the TV audiences, in order to tell the history of a zoo, made my heart sink.  I know regulations have improved since the turn of the century and that the animals will have been cared for to a certain degree– but I was actually left wondering if this programme should have been made at all; and for me that would previously have been an inconceivable question.

I am hoping to embark on an academic career looking at the development of the wild animal trade and zoological collections with a public history element and yet, when an opportunity to highlight this aspect of history arose, I recoiled and doubted its suitability. I’m really interested to hear the history of Chester Zoo, yet the presence of the animals in that feature was unsettling. But it’s a catch-22 situation because I don’t know how you’d get around it. This story has animals at its heart and you can’t really tell that story without them, but to have them puts the animals in a compromised position. I kept thinking about the film Water for Elephants where they used digitally composed stampede scenes – yes it was slightly noticeable but would this not have been an alternative?

I need to conduct more research to make more informed conclusions about this programme for these are merely reflections having watched last night’s episode and having studied the topic for two years. I had just expected to sing the praises of the programme for the service it was doing to the blossoming area of historical research and yet I was actually left feeling quite unsettled about it all.