From Horrible Histories to work at the Royal Commission!

My love for history has taken me on a path that has led me from a love of Horrible Histories and The Mummy movies to a degree in Historical and Archival Studies at Aberystwyth University and a work placement at RCAHMW (and more horrible histories). As part of my course, I spent the whole of the month of July with  the Archives and Library team at the Commission and it strengthened my ambition to become an archivist.
 

I started my placement cataloguing the RCAHMW Wall Paintings in Welsh Churches Collection, which is centred around St Teilo’s Church, once in Llandeilo Talybont and now rebuilt at the St Fagan’s National History Museum. In this one collection I got to grips with correspondence, negatives, slides, tracings and field notes, all about the astonishing wall paintings found inside the church. This collection amazed me and opened my eyes to the exciting world of archives that until then I’d only known academically.

Having finished that collection, I worked on six more, the most exciting being the Excavations Collection. This collection of field notes, photographs and correspondence was in dire need of organisation and TLC, but I was assured that I was up to the task. Each box was more and more interesting, and there were even a few laughs to be had as when one archaeologist, struggling with dating a site, wrote to another saying, ‘I wish these tiresome people had used pottery’ !

I also did my bit for RCAHMW’s social media, and  tweeted about my work here over the last month. I hope to return to volunteer ─as I start my third year at the university─ and carry on with the work I love so much, in an organisation that has really welcomed me.

P.S. I’ve also learned that I hate rusty staples.

   

Charlotte Hollis,Aberystwyth University work-placement student

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