Ken Hughes (78) and Jenny Tasker (17), volunteer guides at the Birmingham Back to Backs, talk about their first year at the newly opened property.
Ken: It is unbelievable. We expected a total of 14,000 visitors for the year but we have welcomed 24,000 in just six months. It’s not just the numbers but the enthusiasm. Everyone wants to share their own memories or the stories their grandparents told them. We’re learning so much from our visitors.
Jenny: I’m still at school so I only guide at weekends. The Back to Backs feel younger than other heritage attractions: not just the buildings but the visitors and volunteers as well. And they are right in the middle of a busy city. People are shopping one minute and stepping back into history the next.
Ken: I should know a bit about these houses – I was born and brought up in one. I try to get across to visitors that it wasn’t all bad. Conditions were hard but I had a very happy childhood. There were some bad courtyards, but many, like this one, where people looked after each other.
Jenny: The past seems very close here. We play recordings from people who lived in Back to Backs and each bit of the tour is built around the story of a real family. As you go from home to home you walk through history from 1840 to 1870, 1930 and finally 1970.
Ken: Some visitors have been so overwhelmed they’ve had to leave. Memories flood back: of their father repairing shoes with an iron last between his knees and a mouthful of nails, their mother cleaning windows from the outside with legs wedged under the sash. People are really interested to discover the history on their doorsteps.
Jenny: They say it feels real, not like a museum. The table in the kitchen looks as if someone’s just popped out and might come back at any moment. Visitors can sit on the chairs and beds, and handle things, literally touching the past. And schoolchildren are so keen to learn how to light the fires and do the washing and cleaning. They come with no idea of what life was like and leave with their imaginations buzzing.
Ken: The old photos show some terrible conditions, but the mothers’ clothes are always spotless. I often say to visitors, ‘this is where the majority of the people lived who put the "great" into Great Britain.’ The people who lived here were proud, and we should feel proud of their heritage.
24,000 people visited the Birmingham Back to Backs in the first six months.
Safeguarding the family silver
Painstaking expert conservation is at the heart of our mission. This year Snowshill Manor was fully rewired with new security and fire-protection systems. 22,000 items had to be catalogued, packed away and reinstated after work was completed (right). Cragside and Penrhyn Castle are next in line for major conservation work.
Extending heritage
There’s been an enthusiastic response to the opening of properties like the Back to Backs which extend the definition of our cultural heritage. In Liverpool, E. Chambré Hardman’s photographic studio (right) now gives visitors an extraordinary insight into the life of the city through much of the last century.
Standing up to be counted
Across the country we work hard to protect our heritage against inappropriate development. For instance, huge expansion of Stansted airport threatens the unique medieval hunting forest at Hatfield.
Back to the future
The past has so much to teach us, not least about ways of living harmoniously with the environment. At Llanerchaeron in Wales, Quarry Bank Mill in Cheshire (right) and Gibson Mill in West Yorkshire we are turning to waterpower again for our energy needs.
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