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The Maritime heritage fleet is irreplaceable
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From Robert Le Maistre.
AS chairman of the Friends of the Maritime Museum I am writing to express our hope that the States Members will support the Education Minister’s proposition requesting that further funding be made available to Jersey Heritage.
A museum is a living thing and none more so than our award winning Maritime Museum where the emphasis is very much on interactive learning. Volunteers give hundreds of hours of their time to maintain the Island’s heritage fleet of boats which includes Howard D, the former St Helier Lifeboat presented to the Island by T B Davis in 1937; Fiona, a traditional Jersey fishing boat built about 1860; Diana, a launch used for many years at Gorey; and Jesse and Florence, sailing day boats originally presented to St Helier Yacht Club by Sir Jesse Boot (Boots the Chemists).
These boats are regularly seen at events around the Island thereby taking the museum out into the community. As seen from the reports which appeared in this newspaper on 21 and 22 June, Diana and Fiona recently returned to St Malo to take part in the 70th Anniversary celebrations of the evacuation of British troops, both these boats having been there in 1940. The Howard D also accompanied them on this occasion.
These original boats have taken years of work to assemble and restore. The skills which are practiced in the Maritime Museum’s boat shop to maintain them ensure that the skills of traditional boat building and restoration are passed on to future generations.
Museums require change and it is therefore essential that in addition to money being made available to keep the site open there is also money to invest in new exhibits, thereby attracting further visitors, thus increasing revenue.
Without the additional funding closure of the Maritime Museum appears inevitable, resulting in the loss of not only the collection within the building but also dispersal of our irreplaceable heritage fleet, which when gone will be lost forever. This cannot be allowed to happen.
We recognise that these are difficult times but we urge our States Members to support the Minister’s proposition thereby ending months of uncertainty and ensuring that this crucial part of Jersey’s heritage is preserved for the benefit of future generations.
• Read more letters to the editor in today’s Jersey Evening Post
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