Posted on

Egypt around every corner

Bolton is the place to be for Egyptologists this autumn. On 22 September the Egyptology gallery of Bolton Museum will re-open with a full-size reproduction of the burial chamber of Thutmose III.
The first away fans to be able to treat themselves to this reconstruction of a site in the Valley of the Kings will be Derby County’s on 29 September. Blackburn Rovers are there on 6 October, followed by Nottingham Forest on 24 October and Hull City on 27 October.
But Bolton isn’t the only destination on the football league itinerary for Egyptian collections:
• Brighton Museum & Art Gallery has two Egyptian galleries through the city’s association with noted Egyptologist Francis Llewellyn Griffith.
• Derby Museum has two mummies (one partially unwrapped) and a number of grave objects.
• Leicester New Walk Museum has a two refurbished Egyptian galleries re-opening on 20 October, when there will be family activities and three times as many artefacts as previously displayed.
• Liverpool had an Egyptian Museum as long ago as 1852. Now its World Museum claims to have the “largest Ancient Egypt gallery outside the British Museum”.
• Macclesfield’s West Park Museum houses the collection of Victorian thrill-seeker Marianne Brocklehurst, a voracious shopper as well as a skilled artist and engaging diary-keeper.
• Manchester Museum’s collection includes objects that found their way up to Lancashire through the funding of Sir Flinders Petrie’s expeditions by industrialist Jesse Haworth
• Norwich Castle has an Egyptian gallery stocked with artefacts donated by local mustard magnate Jeremiah Colman and author Henry Rider Haggard.
• The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford has about 50,000 objects from Egypt and Sudan.
• Rochdale’s Touchstones has a Heritage Gallery with plenty of Egyptian interest, much of it supplied indirectly by Sir Flinders Petrie, a pioneer of archaeology and Egyptology.
• Swansea’s Egypt Centre celebrates its 20th anniversary this year.
• The Museum of Wigan Life has an Egyptian section in which pride of place goes to a mask 3,500 years old.

All this information and more is in Towns of Two Halves. Order your copy from info@townsof2halves.co.uk

Posted on

Berkhamsted Living

A lovely review in the author’s local magazine:
David Guest has just released his second book, Towns of Two Halves. Described as ‘a tourist’s guide to football towns’ it is just that, plus much more.
The premise of the book is that David, over a period of many years, has visited all 92 football stadiums in England [including three in Wales] and, while doing so, has learned more about each town. So while he does tell us much about each town – who knew that Brentford had a water museum, for example? – he also intersperses it with his own personal story at the time, as well as the fate of his beloved Oldham Athletic, the team he’s spent most of his life (blindly) following.
The result is a charming, funny and heartwarming story about football (a bit), but mostly about England, its people and all its quirks and foibles. It’s perfect for football fans, non-football fans, readers and non-readers – and you can devour it in one sitting or dip in and out as you please.
I urge you to give it a go – you won’t be disappointed!