SOMEWHERE in the bowels of Worcester City Museum and Art Gallery they still keep the huge bison head that used to put the frighteners on me when I was a lad.
Along with various African game trophies, the massive curly haired, black nosed bonce from the Great Plains of Canada hung high on a wall in a mausoleum-quiet room, where your footsteps echoed on a polished boarded floor and even in summer it was chilly.
The whole array, which seemed to fix you with their piercing eyes, was quite scary when you were young and had yet to hear some wag say: "They must have been travelling when they hit that wall."
It was a place you were taken on rainy afternoons to look at things you weren't that interested in and the experience wasn't helped by the encounter with the bison's head.
Much has changed since those long ago days and now most of the game trophies are off public display and stored in the cellars.
"They were originally loaned to the museum by a Worcestershire family for the duration of the First World War," explained collections officer Garston Phillips, "but they just stayed.
"The family did have some back a while ago - and even produced receipts to prove ownership - but we've still got about 20 here, including the bison and a lion's head. They're all in storage.
"Stuffed animals are rather out of fashion now. If you remember, we did have a stuffed tiger at the top of the stairs, but the kids wrecked it. In the end, all that remained was its head and its two front feet."
Garston is well placed to recall the saga of the game trophies, because he's worked at the museum, man and boy, for 39 years.
Which is not bad for a lad who wanted to be a car salesman. "As a youngster I loved cars," he said. "It seemed a real flash job."
He was born and brought up at Suckley and when his father, who was a rep for agricultural engineers FH Burgess in The Butts, Worcester, brought him into town, he'd spend hours walking around the museum looking at the sections dealing with natural history, which was his other passion.
When he left Dyson Perrins Secondary in Malvern, the museum offered him a job and so a career in cars went by the board.
"I love it here," he said. "It's like getting paid for your hobby."
The working conditions have improved a bit over the years, too. No more is there a permanent chill in the air and no longer does the sound of your own footsteps accompany you wherever you go.
Ironically this has been brought about in part by measures to protect the ancient boarded floors. They have been covered by carpet, which not only makes them quieter, but makes the rooms warmer too. An improved heating system helps as well and pushes the temperature into the "positively balmy" category without affecting the exhibits.
So no longer do you need to visit the museum dressed for a trip into a cold store.
The premises in Foregate Street are actually Worcester's third site for a museum. The first was in Angel Street and then, in 1835, a new one was built in Foregate Street, where the Odeon Cinema now stands. Both these went under the title the Museum of Worcestershire Natural History Society. The second closed in the late 1880s and the collection was bought by Worcester City Council, which opened the current museum as part of the Victoria Institute in 1896.
What you see on display is only a fraction of the exhibits held and it's fascinating to walk through the store rooms below with Garston, past a huge crate bearing the description "Golden Eagle, this way up," past a massive hornet's nest found at Great Witley and past a rare Roller, a type of Mediterranean crow, shot at Ombersley in 1903. Somewhere there are a couple of stuffed badgers, two stuffed foxes and a stuffed jackal donated by Dents glove factory, Worcester, in 1949. There's also even a stuffed baby polar bear.
"We've got 1,500 stuffed birds, 12,000 shells, 15,000 geological specimens and 30,000 pressed flowers," said Garston. "And if you ask me to count the number of insects, well, I can't. There are too many. Although each insect has an identity tag telling where it was found, when and by whom."
There is also the city collection of paintings and drawings, all racked and numbered and stored until they are needed for museum displays.
"An invaluable record of how Worcester looked in the pre-camera days," he added. "People might think museums are a bit stuffy, but we're not here."
A rummage around also produced the old bison's head too. Still scary after all these years.
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