Heartbeat of the Hawkinge Museum

This photographic project i conducted called 'The Heartbeat of the Hawkinge museum' is about the importance of volunteers in the museum. The heartbeat is the volunteers. Museums including Hawkinge run primarily on donations and museum entry fees to keep the museums open, and therefore they are run be a team of volunteers. These Volunteers give up their free time, to help maintain these Museums and keep them open for future generations to learn from.

Hawkinge Museum located in Folkestone in the county of Kent, is situated on the site of the old Royal Air Force base Hawkinge, which opened in 1916, and closing in 1962. The base operated in both the first and second world war. Most importantly during the Battle of Britain in 1940, when the airfield was the front line fighter station and closest major RAF base to occupied europe. Sadly the airfield is now housing estate, but the Museum sits on a pocket of land within the housing estate which included some of the original buildings. Hawkinge Museum contains the largest collection of Battle Of Britain artefacts in the world, and is constant growing museum, with new exhibits put on display every year. This often done throughout the winter months when the museum closes for a period of time for winter maintenance.

In this project photographing Hawkinge museum, i concentrated on photographing the volunteers, the museum of which they maintain and some of the exhibits on display. This was such a fantasic project, that was so interesting, speaking to volunteers who give up their time once or twice a week to help maintain the museum site and exhibits. The chairman Dave Brocklehurst who has been volunteering at the museum ever since he was teenager, made the visit even more interesting, Dave constantly on the lookout for medals, and battle of britain collections of which he raises the funds, for the items to be bought and put on display in the museum allowing the general public to view them and stop the items from going into private hands. The Museum is kept as a museum, and a memorial to those that flew in the Battle of Britain and from Hawkinge during WW2 especially to those that didn't make it.

A fantastic project that i was sad to finish, a massive thanks to chairman Dave Brocklehurst for allowing me to conduct this project at this fantastic museum.