The Museums That Make Us

While Birmingham is a relatively young city with a pioneering industrial history in the 19th century, the city museum have chosen an object that helps describe the sound of their city in the last years of the 20th century. Basil Gabidon was the lead guitarist for the Roots Reggae band Steel Pulse. His Gibson custom Les Paul guitar featured in a number of their most celebrated tracks, and it now takes its place alongside the museum's other treasures, helping to describe the cultural mix of the city today. Neil talks to joint CEOs Sara Wajid and Zak Mensah about plans for the museum and how it's addressing the changes the city has, and is still, experiencing.

Museums have always been telescopes trained on the past to help locate a sense of place in the present. Neil believes that role is an active one, responding to changes in the people museums serve and the shifting social and cultural landscape they inhabit. After spending much of his life at the centre of our national Museum life in London, Neil is taking to the road to discover more about the extraordinary work being done in Museums outside the capital, from Stornoway to Stowmarket, and Belfast to Birmingham.

In each episode he visits a single museum, inviting them to choose an object from their collections which they feel best illustrates their civic role, and the way they relate and want to relate to their local audience. Very rarely have they chosen a crown jewel from their often priceless collections. More often it's an object with a particular local resonance, or which helps tackle episodes from the past which are being viewed very differently by citizens in the 21st century.

He'll be visiting the great national museums of Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland, as well as major city institutions in Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool and elsewhere. And in spite of the challenges of the last two years, everywhere he meets passionate teams who are dedicated to providing a unique experience for both local audiences and visitors from further afield.

Producer - Tom Alban

Original music composed by Phil Channell

With the toppling of the statue of the slave trader Edward Colston in 2020, in the wake of the worldwide protests over the murder of George Floyd, Bristol became a centre of debate about the way we talk about colonial history, and what we do with objects that describe recall it. The statue, now on its side and still covered in paint, is in Bristol's M Shed museum, but that's not the object that the museum have chosen to tell the story of their museum's relationship with the city today. Instead Neil is shown around one of the city's old Lodekka Buses, which is used to tell the story of the Bristol Bus boycott of 1963. It arose from the refusal of the Bristol Omnibus Company to employ black or Asian bus crews in the city. In common with other cities, there was widespread racial discrimination in housing and employment at that time. But the boycott, led by youth worker Paul Stephenson and the West Indian Development Council, worked. Soon after, the restrictions were dropped and it was considered to have been influential in the movement that lead to the passing of the Race Relations Act of 1965.

Museums have always been telescopes trained on the past to help locate a sense of place in the present. Neil believes that role is an active one, responding to changes in the people museums serve and the shifting social and cultural landscape they inhabit. After spending much of his life at the centre of our national Museum life in London, Neil is taking to the road to discover more about the extraordinary work being done in Museums outside the capital, from Stornoway to Stowmarket, and Belfast to Birmingham.

In each episode he visits a single museum, inviting them to choose an object from their collections which they feel best illustrates their civic role, and the way they relate and want to relate to their local audience. Very rarely have they chosen a crown jewel from their often priceless collections. More often it's an object with a particular local resonance, or which helps tackle episodes from the past which are being viewed very differently by citizens in the 21st century.

He'll be visiting the great national museums of Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland, as well as major city institutions in Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool and elsewhere. And in spite of the challenges of the last two years, everywhere he meets passionate teams who are dedicated to providing a unique experience for both local audiences and visitors from further afield.

Producer - Tom Alban

Original music composed by Phil Channell

He begins the second week of his series visiting Museums that grapple with the appeal of looking back to the power and purpose of the 18th and 19th centuries. How can they tell the story of what often appears to be industrial decline while offering a positive vision for the future. Today he's in Derby, at the heart of the Industrial Midlands, where factory production began. Although the museum's collection includes a massive Rolls Royce Jet engine and a deconstructed Toyota car, the object they've chosen to illustrate their ambitions is a huge Harrison clock mechanism that used to run the city's Guildhall Turret clock. It had been in the museum's stores for many years but working with apprentices from the clock makers Smiths of Derby, it has now been restored. That process makes it the ideal choice for what is now Derby's 'The Museum of Making'.

Museums have always been telescopes trained on the past to help locate a sense of place in the present. Neil believes that role is an active one, responding to changes in the people museums serve and the shifting social and cultural landscape they inhabit. After spending much of his life at the centre of our national Museum life in London, Neil is taking to the road to discover more about the extraordinary work being done in Museums outside the capital, from Stornoway to Stowmarket, and Belfast to Birmingham.

In each episode he visits a single museum, inviting them to choose an object from their collections which they feel best illustrates their civic role, and the way they relate and want to relate to their local audience. Very rarely have they chosen a crown jewel from their often priceless collections. More often it's an object with a particular local resonance, or which helps tackle episodes from the past which are being viewed very differently by citizens in the 21st century.

He'll be visiting the great national museums of Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland, as well as major city institutions in Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool and elsewhere. And in spite of the challenges of the last two years, everywhere he meets passionate teams who are dedicated to providing a unique experience for both local audiences and visitors from further afield.

Producer - Tom Alban

Original music composed by Phil Channell

In a week telling the story of immigration, demographic change and refugees, Neil finishes in Leeds with evidence of one of the oldest peoples to visit and settle in this country. But the Roman child's sandal has been chosen by the museum as an example of their ambitious scheme which establishes partnerships with primary schools in the Leeds area and organises museum exhibits to go out to the schools themselves in special 'museum boxes'. It's a ground-breaking adjunct to the conventional 'schools visit', and allows teachers to make the most of a fantastic local resource. Neil talks to Head of Learning and Access Kate Fellows and local Head teacher Caroline Carr about the importance and success of the scheme.

Museums have always been telescopes trained on the past to help locate a sense of place in the present. Neil believes that role is an active one, responding to changes in the people museums serve and the shifting social and cultural landscape they inhabit. After spending much of his life at the centre of our national Museum life in London, Neil is taking to the road to discover more about the extraordinary work being done in Museums outside the capital, from Stornoway to Stowmarket, and Belfast to Birmingham.

In each episode he visits a single museum, inviting them to choose an object from their collections which they feel best illustrates their civic role, and the way they relate and want to relate to their local audience. Very rarely have they chosen a crown jewel from their often priceless collections. More often it's an object with a particular local resonance, or which helps tackle episodes from the past which are being viewed very differently by citizens in the 21st century.

He'll be visiting the great national museums of Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland, as well as major city institutions in Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool and elsewhere. And in spite of the challenges of the last two years, everywhere he meets passionate teams who are dedicated to providing a unique experience for both local audiences and visitors from further afield.

Producer - Tom Alban

Original music composed by Phil Channell

At a time of an appalling refugee crisis in Europe, a visit to Leicester museum is timely. All this week he'll be going to Museums in cities that have seen demographic changes. Sometimes that change is gradual, sometimes sudden and . That was certainly been the case in Leicester, which saw a huge influx of refugees at the time of Idi Amin's ejection of Ugandan Asians in 1972. But it also saw German refugees in the run up to the second world war, and it's fragments of a painting by one of those figures, the artist Johannes Koelz, which the museum have chosen to illustrate the way they see themselves responding to the particular situation of Leicester both historically and in the present. And with grim irony, given that the object was chosen for the series before Russia's barbaric invasion of Ukraine, the painting is called 'Thou Shalt Not Kill'.

Museums have always been telescopes trained on the past to help locate a sense of place in the present. Neil believes that role is an active one, responding to changes in the people museums serve and the shifting social and cultural landscape they inhabit. After spending much of his life at the centre of our national Museum life in London, Neil is taking to the road to discover more about the extraordinary work being done in Museums outside the capital, from Stornoway to Stowmarket, and Belfast to Birmingham.

In each episode he visits a single museum, inviting them to choose an object from their collections which they feel best illustrates their civic role, and the way they relate and want to relate to their local audience. Very rarely have they chosen a crown jewel from their often priceless collections. More often it's an object with a particular local resonance, or which helps tackle episodes from the past which are being viewed very differently by citizens in the 21st century.

He'll be visiting the great national museums of Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland, as well as major city institutions in Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool and elsewhere. And in spite of the challenges of the last two years, everywhere he meets passionate teams who are dedicated to providing a unique experience for both local audiences and visitors from further afield.

Producer - Tom Alban

Original music composed by Phil Channell

Immigration has been part of Liverpool's story for centuries. As a port city communities from all over the globe settled there, but it was the Irish immigration, particularly during the time of the famine, that had the most dramatic impact. But the Museum of Liverpool, with its spectacular position on the harbour front, has chosen a Jewish Butcher's shop to illustrate that it wasn't just Irish Immigrants who made the city their own. Galkoff's green tiled frontage was a familiar sight to many Liverpudlians, including the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture and Sport, Nadine Dorries. It now has a permanent place in the museum, along with stories from the Galkoff family who ran it and the many people living in the neighbourhood of Pembroke Place.

Museums have always been telescopes trained on the past to help locate a sense of place in the present. Neil believes that role is an active one, responding to changes in the people museums serve and the shifting social and cultural landscape they inhabit. After spending much of his life at the centre of our national Museum life in London, Neil is taking to the road to discover more about the extraordinary work being done in Museums outside the capital, from Stornoway to Stowmarket, and Belfast to Birmingham.

In each episode he visits a single museum, inviting them to choose an object from their collections which they feel best illustrates their civic role, and the way they relate and want to relate to their local audience. Very rarely have they chosen a crown jewel from their often priceless collections. More often it's an object with a particular local resonance, or which helps tackle episodes from the past which are being viewed very differently by citizens in the 21st century.

He'll be visiting the great national museums of Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland, as well as major city institutions in Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool and elsewhere. And in spite of the challenges of the last two years, everywhere he meets passionate teams who are dedicated to providing a unique experience for both local audiences and visitors from further afield.

Producer - Tom Alban

Original music composed by Phil Channell

Today he's on the Isle of Lewis, at the Museum Tasglann nan Eilean in Stornoway. Although the museum has some of the strange and beguiling Lewis Chessmen on display, the story that matters most to them, and to the Scottish Island communities, is that of land ownership, clearances and riots, and the way that story is and has been told.

Museums have always been telescopes trained on the past to help locate a sense of place in the present. Neil believes that role is an active one, responding to changes in the people museums serve and the shifting social and cultural landscape they inhabit. After spending much of his life at the centre of our national Museum life in London, Neil is taking to the road to discover more about the extraordinary work being done in Museums outside the capital, from Stornoway to Stowmarket, and Belfast to Birmingham.

In each episode he visits a single museum, inviting them to choose an object from their collections which they feel best illustrates their civic role, and the way they relate and want to relate to their local audience. Very rarely have they chosen a crown jewel from their often priceless collections. More often it's an object with a particular local resonance, or which helps tackle episodes from the past which are being viewed very differently by citizens in the 21st century.

He'll be visiting the great national museums of Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland, as well as major city institutions in Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool and elsewhere. And in spite of the challenges of the last two years, everywhere he meets passionate teams who are dedicated to providing a unique experience for both local audiences and visitors from further afield.

Producer - Tom Alban

Original music composed by Phil Channell

In the third programme Neil is in North Wales to see Penrhyn Castle. Built on money from slavery, the abolition of slavery and then the Slate Quarry nearby, the castle is now run by the National Trust who are striving to tell the story of their rich collection of art alongside the reality of what made it possible.

Museums have always been telescopes trained on the past to help locate a sense of place in the present. Neil believes that role is an active one, responding to changes in the people museums serve and the shifting social and cultural landscape they inhabit. After spending much of his life at the centre of our national Museum life in London, Neil is taking to the road to discover more about the extraordinary work being done in Museums outside the capital, from Stornoway to Stowmarket, and Belfast to Birmingham.

In each episode he visits a single museum, inviting them to choose an object from their collections which they feel best illustrates their civic role, and the way they relate and want to relate to their local audience. Very rarely have they chosen a crown jewel from their often priceless collections. More often it's an object with a particular local resonance, or which helps tackle episodes from the past which are being viewed very differently by citizens in the 21st century.

He'll be visiting the great national museums of Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland, as well as major city institutions in Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool and elsewhere. And in spite of the challenges of the last two years, everywhere he meets passionate teams who are dedicated to providing a unique experience for both local audiences and visitors from further afield.

Producer - Tom Alban

Original music composed by Phil Channell

Today he travels to the western tip of Cornwall to discover why the Museum of Global communications in Porthcurno is far more than just a local curiosity telling the story of a colourful past. He learns about deep sea cabling and a hidden network that helped forge the modern world of mass communication, and which is best understood in the form of a cable hut where cables from across the British Empire once came ashore.

Museums have always been telescopes trained on the past to help locate a sense of place in the present. Neil believes that role is an active one, responding to changes in the people museums serve and the shifting social and cultural landscape they inhabit. After spending much of his life at the centre of our national Museum life in London, Neil is taking to the road to discover more about the extraordinary work being done in Museums outside the capital, from Stornoway to Stowmarket, and Belfast to Birmingham.

In each episode he visits a single museum, inviting them to choose an object from their collections which they feel best illustrates their civic role, and the way they relate and want to relate to their local audience. Very rarely have they chosen a crown jewel from their often priceless collections. More often it's an object with a particular local resonance, or which helps tackle episodes from the past which are being viewed very differently by citizens in the 21st century.

He'll be visiting the great national museums of Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland, as well as major city institutions in Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool and elsewhere. And in spite of the challenges of the last two years, everywhere he meets passionate teams who are dedicated to providing a unique experience for both local audiences and visitors from further afield.

Producer - Tom Alban

Original music composed by Phil Channell

In today's episode Neil heads to the South coast where Brighton's reputation as a flamboyant, 'out there' city has been enjoyed from the Regency period to the present. And while the Pavilion itself might be an object that epitomises that, the museum has chosen to celebrate an exhibit from their 'Queer Looks' gallery which tells the story of the city's status as the unofficial gay capital of the UK, by celebrating powerful and universal human emotions and rituals which have been allowed to flourish here. That's what lies behind the choice of the wedding attire of Ciara Green and Abbie Lockyer. They got married in 2016, and in a first for Neil, he gets to chat to the original owners of a museum exhibit about what it means to see their clothes on display, and how it affects their views about a museum's role in shaping the attitudes and ambitions of a local community.

Museums have always been telescopes trained on the past to help locate a sense of place in the present. Neil believes that role is an active one, responding to changes in the people museums serve and the shifting social and cultural landscape they inhabit. After spending much of his life at the centre of our national Museum life in London, Neil is taking to the road to discover more about the extraordinary work being done in cherished Museums outside the capital, from Stornoway to Stowmarket, and Belfast to Birmingham.

In each episode he visits a single museum, inviting them to choose an object from their collections which they feel best illustrates their civic role, and the way they relate and want to relate to their local audience. Very rarely have they chosen a crown jewel from their often priceless collections. More often it's an object with a particular local resonance, or which helps tackle episodes from the past which are being viewed very differently by citizens in the 21st century.

He'll be visiting the great national museums of Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland, as well as major city institutions in Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool and elsewhere. And in spite of the challenges of the last two years, everywhere he meets passionate teams who are dedicated to providing a unique experience for both local audiences and visitors from further afield.

Producer - Tom Alban

Original music composed by Phil Channell

Museums have always been telescopes trained on the past to help locate a sense of place in the present. Neil believes that role is an active one, responding to changes in the people museums serve and the shifting social and cultural landscape they inhabit. After spending much of his life at the centre of our national Museum life in London, Neil is taking to the road to discover more about the extraordinary work being done in Museums outside the capital, from Stornoway to Stowmarket, and Belfast to Birmingham.

In each episode he visits a single museum, inviting them to choose an object from their collections which they feel best illustrates their civic role, and the way they relate and want to relate to their local audience. Very rarely have they chosen a crown jewel from their often priceless collections. More often it's an object with a particular local resonance, or which helps tackle episodes from the past which are being viewed very differently by citizens in the 21st century.

He'll be visiting the great national museums of Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland, as well as major city institutions in Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool and elsewhere. And in spite of the challenges of the last two years, everywhere he meets passionate teams who are dedicated to providing a unique experience for both local audiences and visitors from further afield.

The first programme will establish Neil's approach to the subject on a visit to the gardens of Stowe in Buckinghamshire, where in the 1740s the first example of a vision of Britain outside London, was established, complete with a Temple of British worthies.

Producer -Tom Alban

Original music composed by Phil Channell

In a week visiting the National Museums of the United Kingdom, Neil faces the challenge of finding a representative for England. In the event he plumps for the oldest of them all, the Ashmolean in Oxford. But rather than the Alfred Jewel, an item that seems to represent something essential in the English psyche, the museum have opted for a far older object from Northern Syria. Acquired by Oxford's own T.E.Lawrence, this small model clay wagon, possibly a child's toy, provides an opportunity to demonstrate how the museum can provide for a huge breadth of local people from all over the world.

Museums have always been telescopes trained on the past to help locate a sense of place in the present. Neil believes that role is an active one, responding to changes in the people museums serve and the shifting social and cultural landscape they inhabit. After spending much of his life at the centre of our national Museum life in London, Neil is taking to the road to discover more about the extraordinary work being done in Museums outside the capital, from Stornoway to Stowmarket, and Belfast to Birmingham.

In each episode he visits a single museum, inviting them to choose an object from their collections which they feel best illustrates their civic role, and the way they relate and want to relate to their local audience. Very rarely have they chosen a crown jewel from their often priceless collections. More often it's an object with a particular local resonance, or which helps tackle episodes from the past which are being viewed very differently by citizens in the 21st century.

He'll be visiting the great national museums of Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland, as well as major city institutions in Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool and elsewhere. And in spite of the challenges of the last two years, everywhere he meets passionate teams who are dedicated to providing a unique experience for both local audiences and visitors from further afield.

Once again the challenge for today's museum is how to best serve a community that has experienced the industrial decline of the last half-century. In Bishop Auckland's case, it was the demise of the Coal industry that left the region facing so many challenges. The Auckland Project response was the opening of a Miners Art Gallery, to run alongside their celebrated paintings by the Spanish artist Zubaran of Jacob and his twelve sons. And to give that Castle treasure new context, the Trust has opened a third gallery celebrating the golden age of Spanish Art. Driven by founder Jonathan Ruffer, the ambition is to show that art is democratic, and that the very best of painting from Spain can matter to any community given the opportunity to see it.

Museums have always been telescopes trained on the past to help locate a sense of place in the present. Neil believes that role is an active one, responding to changes in the people museums serve and the shifting social and cultural landscape they inhabit. After spending much of his life at the centre of our national Museum life in London, Neil is taking to the road to discover more about the extraordinary work being done in cherished Museums outside the capital, from Stornoway to Stowmarket, and Belfast to Birmingham.

In each episode he visits a single museum, inviting them to choose an object from their collections which they feel best illustrates their civic role, and the way they relate and want to relate to their local audience. Very rarely have they chosen a crown jewel from their often priceless collections. More often it's an object with a particular local resonance, or which helps tackle episodes from the past which are being viewed very differently by citizens in the 21st century.

He'll be visiting the great national museums of Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland, as well as major city institutions in Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool and elsewhere. And in spite of the challenges of the last two years, everywhere he meets passionate teams who are dedicated to providing a unique experience for both local audiences and visitors from further afield.

Producer - Tom Alban

Original music composed by Phil Channell

He continues this week's theme looking at the powerful allure of Britain's pioneering 18th and 19th century story of Industrial and Agrarian wealth, on a visit to The 'Food Museum,' in Stowmarket, Suffolk. It was, until recently, the 'Museum of East Anglian life', and like many museums developed after the second world war it harked back to an age when agriculture was powered by the horse. Once again they've been invited to choose an object from their collection that they believe defines what the museum is for today. Their choice is the biggest in the series, an 18th century Water Mill, transported to Stowmarket in the 1970s when its original site was flooded to make a reservoir. It illustrates the mechanics of a food making process that remains at the heart of our existence, the grinding of corn to make flour, and ultimately bread. That the Mill is driven by a renewable energy is just one way in which it serves as a powerful image for food production in the heavily mechanised 21st century.

Museums have always been telescopes trained on the past to help locate a sense of place in the present. Neil believes that role is an active one, responding to changes in the people museums serve and the shifting social and cultural landscape they inhabit. After spending much of his life at the centre of our national Museum life in London, Neil is taking to the road to discover more about the extraordinary work being done in Museums outside the capital, from Stornoway to Stowmarket, and Belfast to Birmingham.

In each episode he visits a single museum, inviting them to choose an object from their collections which they feel best illustrates their civic role, and the way they relate and want to relate to their local audience. Very rarely have they chosen a crown jewel from their often priceless collections. More often it's an object with a particular local resonance, or which helps tackle episodes from the past which are being viewed very differently by citizens in the 21st century.

He'll be visiting the great national museums of Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland, as well as major city institutions in Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool and elsewhere. And in spite of the challenges of the last two years, everywhere he meets passionate teams who are dedicated to providing a unique experience for both local audiences and visitors from further afield.

Producer - Tom Alban

Original music composed by Phil Channell

Neil is once again in the post industrial North of England, this time in Wakefield, Yorkshire. Amidst the dereliction of old spinning factories and declining coal mining, the local council chose to back an extraordinary project celebrating local artist Barbara Hepworth. The building of The Hepworth on the banks of the river Calder, with its angular structure dipping its toes in the river, has brought surprise, pride and a stream of visitors from both near and far. In a way it's an outlier in the series, being built around the works of one person, but its place at the heart of Wakefield makes it a powerful emblem of what a museum and gallery can be, and the choice of one particular sculpture, a mother and child, is driven not by any curatorial selection but by the simple democracy of postcard sales in the museum shop.

Museums have always been telescopes trained on the past to help locate a sense of place in the present. Neil believes that role is an active one, responding to changes in the people museums serve and the shifting social and cultural landscape they inhabit. After spending much of his life at the centre of our national Museum life in London, Neil is taking to the road to discover more about the extraordinary work being done in cherished Museums outside the capital, from Stornoway to Stowmarket, and Belfast to Birmingham.

In each episode he visits a single museum, inviting them to choose an object from their collections which they feel best illustrates their civic role, and the way they relate and want to relate to their local audience. Very rarely have they chosen a crown jewel from their often priceless collections. More often it's an object with a particular local resonance, or which helps tackle episodes from the past which are being viewed very differently by citizens in the 21st century.

He'll be visiting the great national museums of Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland, as well as major city institutions in Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool and elsewhere. And in spite of the challenges of the last two years, everywhere he meets passionate teams who are dedicated to providing a unique experience for both local audiences and visitors from further afield.

Producer - Tom Alban

Original music composed by Phil Channell

Today he's in Northern Ireland, where the National Museum have chosen an object that illustrates both the country's resurgent film and television industry and the way wit and comedy can undercut division. It's a blackboard from the Channel 4 comedy series Derry Girls. The board was used in an episode in which the eponymous girls were attending a 'peace camp' with boys from a nearby Protestant School. When invited to fill two blackboards, one with similarities and the other with differences between Protestants and Catholics, the similarities board remains almost entirely empty. But the differences board, now in the Museum, is completely covered with ideas ranging from the quietly perceptive to the utterly ludicrous. Do Protestants really keep their toasters in the cupboard? The BBC's former Northern Ireland correspondent Denis Murray is on hand to guide Neil through the comedy and tragedy.

Museums have always been telescopes trained on the past to help locate a sense of place in the present. Neil believes that role is an active one, responding to changes in the people museums serve and the shifting social and cultural landscape they inhabit. After spending much of his life at the centre of our national Museum life in London, Neil is taking to the road to discover more about the extraordinary work being done in Museums outside the capital, from Stornoway to Stowmarket, and Belfast to Birmingham.

In each episode he visits a single museum, inviting them to choose an object from their collections which they feel best illustrates their civic role, and the way they relate and want to relate to their local audience. Very rarely have they chosen a crown jewel from their often priceless collections. More often it's an object with a particular local resonance, or which helps tackle episodes from the past which are being viewed very differently by citizens in the 21st century.

He'll be visiting the great national museums of Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland, as well as major city institutions in Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool and elsewhere. And in spite of the challenges of the last two years, everywhere he meets passionate teams who are dedicated to providing a unique experience for both local audiences and visitors from further afield.

In this, the final week of programmes, Neil visits national museums in Wales, Northern Ireland and today, Scotland, As in previous episodes, the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh has chosen an object that they feel gets to the heart of the relationship they have with visitors from across the nation. In fact there are two objects hanging opposite each other. One is a battered Saltire, the other the King's colour standard, flags that were seen on opposing sides at the Battle of Culloden in 1746, the final event in the Jacobite rising. Neil is joined by fellow Scot and former soldier JJ Chalmers to hear the story behind the survival of the two flags, and the complex histories that make simple national identity in Scotland so fraught, even today.

Museums have always been telescopes trained on the past to help locate a sense of place in the present. Neil believes that role is an active one, responding to changes in the people museums serve and the shifting social and cultural landscape they inhabit. After spending much of his life at the centre of our national Museum life in London, Neil is taking to the road to discover more about the extraordinary work being done in Museums outside the capital, from Stornoway to Stowmarket, and Belfast to Birmingham.

In each episode he visits a single museum, inviting them to choose an object from their collections which they feel best illustrates their civic role, and the way they relate and want to relate to their local audience. Very rarely have they chosen a crown jewel from their often priceless collections. More often it's an object with a particular local resonance, or which helps tackle episodes from the past which are being viewed very differently by citizens in the 21st century.

He'll be visiting the great national museums of Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland, as well as major city institutions in Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool and elsewhere. And in spite of the challenges of the last two years, everywhere he meets passionate teams who are dedicated to providing a unique experience for both local audiences and visitors from further afield.

Producer - Tom Alban

Original Music by Phil Channell

Today Neil is the guest of the National Museum of Wales, and more particularly the St Fagans museum, where the Oral Archive is housed. Neil gets to hear a range of examples from early Welsh language speakers to choirs and the more recent recordings of senior figures from the country's Windrush generation. He talks to Mrs Vernesta Cyril OBE, a celebrated midwife, who explains the sense of belonging that arises from being a part of the Oral archive.

Museums have always been telescopes trained on the past to help locate a sense of place in the present. Neil believes that role is an active one, responding to changes in the people museums serve and the shifting social and cultural landscape they inhabit. After spending much of his life at the centre of our national Museum life in London, Neil is taking to the road to discover more about the extraordinary work being done in Museums outside the capital, from Stornoway to Stowmarket, and Belfast to Birmingham.

In each episode he visits a single museum, inviting them to choose an object from their collections which they feel best illustrates their civic role, and the way they relate and want to relate to their local audience. Very rarely have they chosen a crown jewel from their often priceless collections. More often it's an object with a particular local resonance, or which helps tackle episodes from the past which are being viewed very differently by citizens in the 21st century.

He'll be visiting the great national museums of Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland, as well as major city institutions in Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool and elsewhere. And in spite of the challenges of the last two years, everywhere he meets passionate teams who are dedicated to providing a unique experience for both local audiences and visitors from further afield.

Today he's in Derry/Londonderry, where the Tower Museum strives to broaden the city's reputation away from one of division and violence by celebrating the lost industry of shirt making. At it's height, in the early 20th century, Derry shirts were exported all over the world. Although there is almost nothing left of that once booming trade, there remains a pride in the Shirt, chosen by the museum to demonstrate their sense of what matters to the local community.

Museums have always been telescopes trained on the past to help locate a sense of place in the present. Neil believes that role is an active one, responding to changes in the people museums serve and the shifting social and cultural landscape they inhabit. After spending much of his life at the centre of our national Museum life in London, Neil is taking to the road to discover more about the extraordinary work being done in Museums outside the capital, from Stornoway to Stowmarket, and Belfast to Birmingham.

In each episode he visits a single museum, inviting them to choose an object from their collections which they feel best illustrates their civic role, and the way they relate and want to relate to their local audience. Very rarely have they chosen a crown jewel from their often priceless collections. More often it's an object with a particular local resonance, or which helps tackle episodes from the past which are being viewed very differently by citizens in the 21st century.

He'll be visiting the great national museums of Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland, as well as major city institutions in Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool and elsewhere. And in spite of the challenges of the last two years, everywhere he meets passionate teams who are dedicated to providing a unique experience for both local audiences and visitors from further afield.

Producer - Tom Alban

Original music composed by Phil Channell

In the third week of his series, Neil visits museums in cities which have seen demographic change, either gradual or sudden, over the past fifty years. In each case the museum, whether in Liverpool, Bristol, Birmingham or Leicester, has sought to reflect and respond to the new situation and make the museum a space in which everyone feels invested in looking back with insight and forward with positive ambition.

Museums have always been telescopes trained on the past to help locate a sense of place in the present. Neil believes that role is an active one, responding to changes in the people museums serve and the shifting social and cultural landscape they inhabit. After spending much of his life at the centre of our national Museum life in London, Neil is taking to the road to discover more about the extraordinary work being done in Museums outside the capital, from Stornoway to Stowmarket, and Belfast to Birmingham.

In each episode he visits a single museum, inviting them to choose an object from their collections which they feel best illustrates their civic role, and the way they relate and want to relate to their local audience. Very rarely have they chosen a crown jewel from their often priceless collections. More often it's an object with a particular local resonance, or which helps tackle episodes from the past which are being viewed very differently by citizens in the 21st century.

He'll be visiting the great national museums of Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland, as well as major city institutions in Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool and elsewhere. And in spite of the challenges of the last two years, everywhere he meets passionate teams who are dedicated to providing a unique experience for both local audiences and visitors from further afield.

Producer - Tom Alban

Original music composed by Phil Channell

In this final week of programmes Neil visits National Museums in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, as well as the Ashmolean in Oxford.

Museums have always been telescopes trained on the past to help locate a sense of place in the present. Neil believes that role is an active one, responding to changes in the people museums serve and the shifting social and cultural landscape they inhabit. After spending much of his life at the centre of our national Museum life in London, Neil is taking to the road to discover more about the extraordinary work being done in Museums outside the capital, from Stornoway to Stowmarket, and Belfast to Birmingham.

In each episode he visits a single museum, inviting them to choose an object from their collections which they feel best illustrates their civic role, and the way they relate and want to relate to their local audience. Very rarely have they chosen a crown jewel from their often priceless collections. More often it's an object with a particular local resonance, or which helps tackle episodes from the past which are being viewed very differently by citizens in the 21st century.

He'll be visiting the great national museums of Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland, as well as major city institutions in Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool and elsewhere. And in spite of the challenges of the last two years, everywhere he meets passionate teams who are dedicated to providing a unique experience for both local audiences and visitors from further afield.

Producer - Tom Alban

Original Music by Phil Channell

In the first week of programmes he sees change, challenge and gets a sense of the sheer range of Britain's museum culture, from Derry/Londonderry in the West, Porthcurno in the Cornish South up to Stornoway in the north.

Museums have always been telescopes trained on the past to help locate a sense of place in the present. Neil believes that role is an active one, responding to changes in the people museums serve and the shifting social and cultural landscape they inhabit. After spending much of his life at the centre of our national Museum life in London, Neil is taking to the road to discover more about the extraordinary work being done in Museums outside the capital, from Stornoway to Stowmarket, and Belfast to Birmingham.

In each episode he visits a single museum, invitation them to choose an object from their collections which they feel best illustrates their civic role, and the way they relate and want to relate to their local audience. Very rarely have they chosen a crown jewel from their often priceless collections. More often it's an object with a particular local resonance, or which helps tackle episodes from the past which are being viewed very differently by citizens in the 21st century.

He'll be visiting the great national museums of Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland, as well as major city institutions in Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool and elsewhere. And in spite of the challenges of the last two years, everywhere he meets passionate teams who are dedicated to providing a unique experience for both local audiences and visitors from further afield.

Producer - Tom Alban

Original music composed by Phil Channell

In the second week of his series, Neil visits museums who have to deal with the allure of a thriving past, particularly through the industrial revolution. Very often the vestiges of that past encourage a spirit of loss and longing, but in Derby, Bishop Auckland, Stowmarket, Wakefield and Brighton, museums are managing to deliver a message of civic pride and ambition for the future, without dismissing the history.

Museums have always been telescopes trained on the past to help locate a sense of place in the present. Neil believes that role is an active one, responding to changes in the people museums serve and the shifting social and cultural landscape they inhabit. After spending much of his life at the centre of our national Museum life in London, Neil is taking to the road to discover more about the extraordinary work being done in cherished Museums outside the capital, from Stornoway to Stowmarket, and Belfast to Birmingham.

In each episode he visits a single museum, inviting them to choose an object from their collections which they feel best illustrates their civic role, and the way they relate and want to relate to their local audience. Very rarely have they chosen a crown jewel from their often priceless collections. More often it's an object with a particular local resonance, or which helps tackle episodes from the past which are being viewed very differently by citizens in the 21st century.

He'll be visiting the great national museums of Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland, as well as major city institutions in Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool and elsewhere. And in spite of the challenges of the last two years, everywhere he meets passionate teams who are dedicated to providing a unique experience for both local audiences and visitors from further afield.

Producer - Tom Alban

Original music composed by Phil Channell

In this, the final programme in the series Neil looks for his own local museum, and finds himself beguiled by an extraordinary Tapestry that tells the story of his native Scotland, but told by a wonderfully democratic array of designers, stitchers and the historian Alistair Moffet. Neil joins Alistair in Galashiels to work the length of the Great Tapestry of Scotland and see his own life, and that of his nation mapped out with needle and thread wonderful artistry. And Neil also reaches conclusions about his travels through the series, and what they've demonstrated about museums, the people that run them and the visitors who are being inspired by them every day.

Museums have always been telescopes trained on the past to help locate a sense of place in the present. Neil believes that role is an active one, responding to changes in the people museums serve and the shifting social and cultural landscape they inhabit. After spending much of his life at the centre of our national Museum life in London, Neil is taking to the road to discover more about the extraordinary work being done in Museums outside the capital, from Stornoway to Stowmarket, and Belfast to Birmingham.

In each episode he visits a single museum, inviting them to choose an object from their collections which they feel best illustrates their civic role, and the way they relate and want to relate to their local audience. Very rarely have they chosen a crown jewel from their often priceless collections. More often it's an object with a particular local resonance, or which helps tackle episodes from the past which are being viewed very differently by citizens in the 21st century.

He'll be visiting the great national museums of Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland, as well as major city institutions in Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool and elsewhere. And in spite of the challenges of the last two years, everywhere he meets passionate teams who are dedicated to providing a unique experience for both local audiences and visitors from further afield.

Produced by Tom Alban

Original Music By Phil Channell