A trail based on 'Not Just a Berkshire Farmer' - Part 1 - initial ideas

A local farmer, Bert Houghton, wrote some charming books in the '80s and '90s about his experiences.

We were introduced to them by his step-daughter, who is the head of a special school nearby. We've now found copies of 'Not just a Berkshire Farmer' and 'Just more of the Berkshire Farmer' in the Museum of English Rural Life library, and also on Amazon (so we've splashed out). All the copies are signed by Bert which  is a lovely touch. The Museum archivists have also found us the copy of Farmers' Weekly for 1975 on which a poem in the book is based.

We've found some objects in the MERL that are very similar to those in some of the illustrations. We are now trying to find out who may own the rights now to both the illustrations and the text to see if we might use them in a trail around the Museum, especially for visitors who might find communication difficult for one reason or another.

Our ideas are similar to those for the Olympic trail (see next blog). A two-sided card would hang from the object. One side might look something like this:

The other side might look something like this (note, symbols are copyright Widgit Symbols Ltd)