Tag: REME Museum

REME Museum of Technology (Part 2)

Beautiful Bedford

The second building at the REME Museum of Technology is where all the vehicles are kept.

Obviously we saw tanks, and a helicopter (with the Easter Bunny as the pilot!), but I was particularly interested in the seemingly endless variations on the Bedford lorry. Not only were they used to transport both personnel and equipment, but also to rescue and maintain other vehicles.

Bedford radio truck

This one’s kitted out as a self-contained communications base.

Bedford workshop truck

This one has a complete workshop inside, so that new parts could be manufactured to repair equipment. If you’re stuck in the middle of Africa, not to mention stuck in a war, you can’t exactly pop down to the local garage for spare parts for your tank. Vehicles like this allowed REME to make their own.

I have to confess to a certain fascination with lorries like these, with completely self-contained and often unexpected worlds inside.

I’ve been reading The Hermitage lately, whose author Rima used to live in a converted Bedford horse box. I’ve also been re-reading Wind in the Willows, and enjoying the colourful illustrations of Toad’s ill-fated Gypsy caravan. Which reminds me that I haven’t visited the Gypsy caravan at Blake’s Lock Museum (or what’s left of it) in far too long… and that reminds me that Carter’s Steam Fair is in Reading this weekend.

I’m not sure where this fascination with moveable houses comes from. Anybody who knows me would laugh at the thought of me being a traveller – I don’t drive, and I loathe being trapped in a car or on a train. The last time I ventured onto an aeroplane was thirteen years ago, and I get sick on boats. But there’s still something about the possibility of just pulling up your roots and moving on, whilst taking all of your belongings with you, that I find very attractive indeed.

REME Museum of Technology (Part 1)

This morning we paid an impromptu visit to the REME Museum of Technology at Arborfield. We wanted to go somewhere local, but that we’d never been to before, so this fit the bill perfectly. We were both surprised at how big the Museum was, and also how good the displays were. I have to say that we’d looked at the Museum’s website and pre-judged the place a little, so we were very pleasantly surprised when we arrived.

The main Museum building has lots of displays of different types of technology. There are lots of recordings to listen to, a slightly animatronic guard (who told us off for not having shiny boots!), and uniforms for the children to try on. It mostly looks at the period 1939-45, but there are much older objects in the small arms room, and some more recent developments too. We saw communications technology from the Falklands, and photographs of some current equipment being used in Afghanistan.

Medals

These medals made me pause, because I’m fairly certain they’re the same ones that my Grandad had. From left to right they’re The 1939-1945 Star, The Africa Star and The 1939-1945 War Medal. These three were awarded to a driver in Africa, which is pretty much all I know about my Grandad’s role during the Second World War. He drove lorries, and he went to Africa. Beyond that I don’t know anything, because he simply refused to talk about it. When we found my Grandad’s medals, they were still in their original brown cardboard box, ribbons folded, wrapped in paper. They were kept in a drawer in the dining room, underneath the tea towels.

"DANGER"

This little box (about 12cm/5″ square) is part of the food ration and contains, believe it or not, a tiny stove. The tablets warned against on the box are blocks of hexamine – like modern firelighters. I love the way that “DANGER“ has been emphasised with capitals, bold, quotation marks and underlining, just in case you’ve somehow missed the point.

I tried to take pictures of some other glorious examples of typography, but it was a little bit too dark. My favourite leaflet was a set of instructions for what to do if you should escape after having been taken prisoner. Seventeen pieces of advice, beginning with “Air your feet” and ending with “DO NOT GET FLUSTERED”. Not quite as snappy as “KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON”, but important advice nonetheless!

You can see more photos here.