Event Type : ARMITT EVENTS AT THE MUSEUM

Tuesday, 30 April 2024    
14:00–15:30
Between 1939 and 1945, a significant proportion of Britain’s national collection of modern art from the Tate Gallery in London was brought to Muncaster Castle to save it from destruction from bombing. This illustrated lecture explains why and how this happened, who was responsible, what happened to the pictures while they were stored at Muncaster Castle, and reveals some of the pictures which were kept there. In February 2024 the BBC, Border TV, and Radio Cumbria ran features on the story.

About the Speaker:
Prior to retirement Dr Rob David was a lecturer at Charlotte Mason College in Ambleside and at St Martin’s College, Lancaster, and a regular lecturer for several adult education groups. For several years, he was a Visiting Research Fellow in the History Department at Lancaster University. He is now an independent researcher. He has coordinated a British Council Link, working towards the UN Millennium Goal of universal primary education, between St Martin’s College and the Asmara Teacher Training Institute in Eritrea. He has studied for the Diploma in Local History, an MA, and a PhD at Lancaster University. His publications include a guide to Cumbrian archives (with Mike Winstanley), and Voices of the Lake District (with Jane Renouf). He was President of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society from 2017–2020. He has been a Chair of Cumbria Industrial History Society, Friends of Cumbria Archives, Ambleside Oral History Group and has been Chair of the Advisory Board for the Regional Heritage Centre at Lancaster University.

As part of our “Running Int’ Fells” events programme for mental health in May, Alex Staniforth and Harrison Ward will share their stories about how getting out into the fells – running, swimming, walking – have helped them to push through times of struggle. This event will comprise of a Q&A discussion, film showing and a cooking activity which will be shared with the audience at the end of the event (ingredients and food allergens can be found in the T&Cs).

About the speakers
Harrison Ward, AKA Fell Foodie, is an outdoor cooking expert and author of the ultimate outdoor adventure cookbook ‘Cook Out’. He is also a huge advocate for time outdoors for mental and physical wellbeing, as it aided his recovery from alcoholism, obesity and as a management tool for a clinical depression diagnosis. He has been featured on the BBC on Dame Mary Berry’s series ‘Love to Cook’, Channel 5 on ‘Winter on the Farm’ and has been an Ordnance Survey Champion since 2020.
Alex Staniforth is a record-breaking adventurer, motivational speaker, author and founder of the mental health charity, ‘Mind Over Mountains’. Now based in Kendal, he is usually found running or open water swimming around the local fells. Alex will be sharing his latest film ‘Head Above Water’ which explores his comeback from Long Covid to complete the Frog Graham Round – a 40-mile swimrun challenges in the Lake District – and how spending time in the outdoors has been transformational for his own mental health and others.
Tickets are £15.

In 2004, Richard Askwith published Feet in the Clouds: a personal memoir of fell running and obsession that was also the first book to introduce the sport to a general audience, beyond the mountainous north-west. Some say fell running hasn’t been the same since. Twenty years on, the author reflects on two decades of change – and explains why he still can’t resist the call of the fells.

About the speaker

An award-winning author with seven books to his name and over 40 years’ experience in journalism, Richard Askwith is best known for his writings about running. In addition to Feet in the Clouds – available from May 2024 in a new 20th anniversary edition – these include Today We Die a Little, an acclaimed biography of the great Czech athlete, Emil Zátopek; Running Free, a very personal account of “a runner’s journey back to nature”; and The Race Against Time, an inspiring study of runners (including the 64-year-old author) who refuse to surrender to the discouragements of ageing.

A former executive editor of The Independent, Richard has spent most of his life living in Northamptonshire, where he runs up and down the biggest hills he can find and, between books, writes features for publications such as The Times, Saga and Runner’s World.

£15 Adults, £7 Children

If you’ve ever been curious about how photography was done a century or more ago, this workshop with photographer Chris Routledge is a chance to find out. Using modern instant film and direct positive paper, this is your chance to get under the dark cloth, enter ”the upside-down” and (weather permitting) take some photographs of the area around the museum, and your fellow participants.

About the artist

Chris Routledge is a photographer and artist who is increasingly drawn to alternative photographic methods. He exhibits his work regularly, notably in solo exhibitions at the Heaton Cooper Gallery, Grasmere, in 2019, and at Veszprém, Hungary, as part of their European Capital of Culture programme in March/April 2023.