Well done to the City Museum, which has won the News Guide Award for Best Exhibition.

Museums staff celebrated  as ‘Tale of One City’ was announced as Best Exhibition, at an event which honours the best entertainment in the area.

Joining museums staff at the event were representatives from 3 of the community groups ( African Women’s Forum, Alderman Lacey Reminiscence Group and the Adult and Family Learning group  - based at Charles Dickens School) who have also been part of the project

Jane Mee, Manager of Portsmouth Museums, Archives & Visitor Services, said: “Thank you so much to everyone that voted for us, I feel very honoured that we’ve won. We worked very hard with this exhibition to work with communities and – through the city’s museum and archive collections – to connect with people across the city.  I think it is also a reflection of the high regard in which the City Museum is held.”

All the awards were voted for by local people. Well done to all the staff that worked on the project and to the community participants.

 Read the report from Portsmouth News

The final edition of our newsletter features a roundup of all the community groups involved in the Tale of One City project, with photos and a recap of the events held over the past year to celebrate Dickens’ 200th birthday.

To mark the great writer’s 201st bithday On the 7th of February, admission will be free  at the Charles Dickens Birthplace Museum. The Lord Mayor will say a few words in his memory and participate in the hanging the wreath.  As always the Dickens Fellowship will ” Raise a cheer “  The museum opens to the public at 11am

The tradition of readings on Charles Dickens birthday have been going on for a very long time. pictured above is a pamphlet of one that took place in 1897 it was not on his actualk birth date but near enough!

It looks like someone might have heard about our upcoming Teddy Bears exhibition here at the City Museum…

Interestingly, a team from Portsmouth appeared in the first series of the show, and did rather well too.  Danny the Dungeoneer made it all the way to level 3 and only perished after taking a wrong turning. By taking the left-hand doorway, rather than the right, Danny blundered into a chamber containing a large bomb. The team’s strong performance in their earlier challenges suggested that they might have been crowned the first ever Knightmare champions. But sadly that was not to be…

All this got me thinking. Are there any other memorable appearances by Portmuthians on tv gameshows?

More detail about the Portsmouth team’s quest can be found on this Knightmare fan site.

“Oooh, nasty!”

The many moustaches of Portsmouth City Museum

“I’ll definitely be keeping my moustache. It’s been an absolute pleasure cultivating my “mo” over the last month and raising money for a fantastic cause.” – Liam Gleeson

“It’s been great to raise awareness of a very good cause, and also gain an insight into times in history when a moustache was almost compulsory. However, my moustache will be gone one minute after midnight on Friday – I really don’t know how people who have one all the time can stand the itchiness!” -James Daly

“This month my top lip has been itching like mad, so my moustache won’t be staying any longer than is necessary. We’ve done fairly well with donations but more than that I’ve been delighted with the way people have been talking about Movember. The whole point of it is to raise awareness about men’s health and I think we’ve certainly done our bit.”  - Richard Marsh

“My top lip has been nice and warm all month. People have been worried about asking if I was doing Movember in case the moustache was a permanent fixture of my face.” – Edward O’Bryan

So far Museum staff have raised £178 through their Movember page, and several team members have had pledges for shaving their ‘mo’s’ off. There has also been a Movember collection at the City Museum and other museums across Portsmouth. Our Movember Sons (also known as the Ray Pratt Appreciation Society) have until 9 December to gather in all donations.

Newsletter Issue 6

The latest news from The Dickens Community Archive Project has been issued for November 2012. The publication features articles on

Family Fun at Charles Dickens School

Mice from the Fratton Live at Home group

A film by Ognoshor Bangladeshi Women’s Group

A Dickensian day at the Fratton Community Centre

Pick up a copy of the Newsletter at museums, libraries and community centres across Portsmouth.

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As the A Tale of One City exhibition at the City Museum ends and this year’s Dickens 200 celebrations draw to an end …

“Don’t Despair”

because the website will keep running!

You can get involved by sharing your experiences and pictures of life in Portsmouth, past and present. It’s free and easy to use.

And finally … A Tale of One City website has been officially recognised as an ‘online gem’ in the BBC’s ‘Who Do You Think You Are? magazine. In the magazine’s October issue the website was placed in the top 10 of a list of fifty local history websites in the country.

TOOC News6_web

Portsmouth City Museum staff with another famous facial hair wearer

During the month of November, eight Portsmouth City Museum staff will be growing moustaches as part of the Movember project to raise awareness of Prostate and Testicular Cancer.

Five of the museum’s Movember sons are seen here at the beginning of the month, we look forward to seeing how much folicle enhancement will occur in the coming weeks.

Can you find all five?
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Here at Portsmouth City Museum lots of the staff have taken on the challenge of not shaving their top lip for a whole month. In honour of this we have provided  some fine examples of moustaches from the archive collection. All of these moustachioed gentlemen served in the Portsmouth Borough Police and these photographs appear in  staff records from the late 1800′s to very early 1900′s. In fact it seems it was very unusual to find a Portsmouth policeman without a moustache at this time! Have a perusal and pick out your favourite moustache. We wonder whether any of the boys at the Museum will grow anything to compete with these specimens. Look out for updates on their progress… 

Once registered at Movember each Mo Bro must begin the 1st of Movember with a clean shaven face. For the entire month each Mo Bro must grow and groom a moustache.

There is to be no joining of the mo to the sideburns (that’s considered a beard), there’s to be no joining of the handlebars to the chin (that’s considered a goatee) and each Mo Bro must conduct himself like a true gentleman.

Mo Bros effectively become walking, talking billboards for the 30 days of November and through their actions and words raise awareness by prompting private and public conversation around the often ignored issue of men’s health.

The funds raised in the UK are directed to programmes run directly by Movember and our men’s health partners, Prostate Cancer UK and the Institute of Cancer Research.

We work with these partners to ensure that Movember funds are supporting a broad range of innovative, world-class programmes in line with our strategic goals in the areas of awareness and education, survivorship and research.

Big steps have been taken towards changing attitudes and habits relating to men’s health around the world but there is still much to be done to catch up with the women’s health movement.

Via the moustache, Movember aims to fulfil its vision of having an everlasting impact on the face of men’s health, by continuing to spark conversation and spread awareness of men’s health each year.

At the end of the month, Mo Bros and Mo Sistas celebrate their Movember journey throwing their own Movember parties or attending one of the Gala Partés held around the world to stand tall and celebrate the moustache.

These photographs are taken from DF/P1/3/2 accessible via Portsmouth History Centre

Extracts taken from the Movember & Sons UK website.

A cast of Dickensian characters including ‘Bill and Nancy’ from the Groundlings Theatre

Fratton Community Centre came alive with street urchins, elegant Victorian ladies and a notorious baddie on Thursday 25th October. The centre held a Dickens Day looking at life from 1812 to 1870 as part of the A Tale of One City project. The day included a Victorian Schoolroom,  storytelling by the fireside with Mike Rogers and a Victorian High Tea. The Fratton Live At Home Group decorated the centre with beautiful handcrafted Victorian-style love tokens. Anna and Ed from the A Tale of One City project attended with an array of archives including old maps showing how Fratton has changed over the centuries. A fun time was had by all despite the appearance of a loud and violent character by the name of Bill Sykes.

Fratton Community Centre has been very involved with the A Tale of One City project . Both the Bunny Warren Preschool and FLAH groups who meet at the Centre  contributed to the project exhibition at the City Museum. Centre staff also visited Portsmouth History Centre for training in how to use the archives.

Some of the Victorian-style love tokens made by Fratton Live At Home

Fratton would have been a  rural place during the time of Dickens which was outside the crowded residential areas of Portsmouth and Portsea. Here is a story that appeared in the Hampshire Telegraph on 30 September 1848 under the heading Portsmouth Police;

 Luke Sparkes was complained against by Francis Hunt for having on the 23^rd instant, at Fratton, assaulted him.

The complainant has a field in Fratton in which were some potatoes, and on the day of the assault he observed some boys in the fields stealing potatoes; and on his approach they ran away, and one of them (the defendant’s son), dropped a basket and hoe: the complainant picked them up, and had them in his possession and followed him, and demanded the basket as his property. The complainant refused to deliver it up, and the assault was committed. Convicted and fined 10s and 9s costs or 10 imprisonment. Paid

The boy was present in court but as it appeared he was not given to stealing, Mr Hunt, at the suggestion of the bench, did not press the charge of stealing the potatoes against him, and he was discharged.

Hampshire Telegraph

More images from the day appear below

Two urchins with one of the copies of Oliver Twist given away free for the bi-centennary