Dry Store Room No. 1: The Secret Life of the Natural History Museum. Richard Fortey

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       Acknowledgements

      I am indebted to many friends and colleagues in the Natural History Museum for sharing their oral histories with me, often in return for no more than a good lunch. Any errors that appear in this book are entirely the fault of the author, who may have not been the best of scribes, and nothing to do with those at lunch. I apologize to those who gave me stories that I failed to use: there was no shortage of material. I apologize even more sincerely to those who still have not received their lunch. I should particularly mention the following (in no particular order): Edmund Launert, Sandra Knapp, Peter Hammond, Dick Vane-Wright, Victor Eastop, Martin Hall, Steve Brooks, Andrew Polaszek, Paul Eggleton, David Reid, John Taylor, David Johnson, Vaughan Southgate, Amoret Whitaker, Jenny Bryant, Linda Irvine, Bob Press, Robert Symes, Richard Her-rington, Alan Hart, Paul Taylor, Hugh Owen, Ellis Owen, Angela Milner, Cyril Walker, Ollie Crimmen, Ron Croucher, Chris Stringer, Andrew Currant, Alex Ball, Sara Russell, Frances Wall, Chris Stanley, Bob Hutchison, Rowland Whitehead, Klaus Sattler, Kathy Way and Lorraine Cornish. Polly Tucker helped greatly with making Museum archives available to me. Thanks also to Katie Anderson in the Natural History Museum Picture Libary. Heather Godwin gave her usual eagled-eyed attention to the first draft, and removed several bad jokes. Robin Cocks read through the manuscript. Jackie Fortey gave indispensable help with picture research. Annabel Wright and Gail Lynch at HarperCollins were charming and patient editors, and Vera Brice was a fantastic designer.

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       Behind the galleries

      This book is my own store room, a personal archive, designed to explain what goes on behind the polished doors in the Natural History Museum. All our lives are collections curated through memory. We pick up recollections and facts and store them, often half forgotten, or tucked away on shelves buried deep in the psyche. Not everything is as blameless as we might like. But the sum total of that deep archive is what makes us who we are. I cannot escape the fact that working for a whole lifetime within the extravagant building in South Kensington has moulded much of my character. By the same token, I also know the place rather better than any outsider. I am in a position to write a natural history of the Natural History Museum, to elucidate its СКАЧАТЬ