The Volunteer - National Maritime Museum

The Volunteer January 2012 - Issue 8
The Volunteer
Ping Wo
Life in the Day
and much more...
Helen Webb, Volunteer Manager
Royal Museums Greenwich
Greenwich, London, SE10 9NF
Phone: 020 8312 6543/ 020 8312 8571
1

Editorial
Welcome to the 8th issue of your
newsletter which is coming out at the
dawn of 2012: a year which promises to
be a very exciting one for this Museum.
First off we have our name change. We
are now the Royal Museums Greenwich.
This change has come about as part of
our re-branding and reflects the royal
status which is due to be conferred on
the London Borough of Greenwich next
month. The Museums referred to in our
name are the Royal Observatory, the
Queen’s House and the main maritime
galleries. These galleries will retain the
name of the National Maritime Museum.
As with our last issue, our front cover
carries a reminder of the annual
Volunteers’ Seminar and Lunch which
took place last May. Since then the
Museum’s Volunteer Programme has
continued to grow and the details are
given, as usual, in this newsletter.
Some of you kindly sponsored my
colleague Rachel Mentiply as she
undertook the Great Glen Way walk last
autumn. She raised £943.83 for Guide
Dogs for the Blind.
Here is her report of
her journey and a
picture of her guide
dog Samson, who is
an important part of
the Volunteer Office team.
“It seems a long time ago now that
Samson and I walked the Great Glen
Way, a walk that I thought was going to
be just 74 miles…However, the distance
was calculated by a friend (not me!), as if
we were going to do the walk via the
roads. By the time we walked over
mountains, or Glens as the Scots like to
call them, doubled backward and
forward walked a mile or two to the left
or right we clocked up just over 100
miles in four and a half days!
Both my friend & I really enjoyed the
challenge of the walk and Samson loved
it. It was a holiday for him as well as he
wasn’t in his harness and got to go
swimming in the Lochs and running all
day long!”
With thanks for all you do and best
wishes for the year ahead -
Helen Webb
Volunteer Manager
East Wing, RMG
020 8312 6543
hwebb@rmg.co.uk
2

A Life in the Day of
Amaya Wang
Can you tell us what your role is
and what you do?
Right now I’m volunteering in two roles;
I’m a Queen’s House Room Guide and
an Oil Painting Research Volunteer. I
recently started the research role and am
enjoying it a lot. The main thing I am
doing is reviewing
catalogue entries for
the Digital Archive. We
use spreadsheets a lot,
comparing those to the
hard copies, to make
sure there are no
missing dates, artists,
spelling mistakes,
wrong information or
mistakes in dates. If
there is something
missing or incorrect
and we cannot find the
correct information we
have to ensure that it is noted so that
when the next volunteer comes in they
know what’s what.
How would your typical day pan
out?
I usually get in at ten o’clock, log into the
computer and MIMSY system and then
spend the day going through all the
records ensuring that everything is
correct... It’s really important as in the
future these records will go online in
conjunction with the BBC, so that people
can access paintings that aren’t seen
because they are in storage. Hopefully it
will encourage more people to visit the
Museum once they’ve seen online what
the Museum has.
Why did you decide to volunteer
here?
I’ve always been interested in history, art
and architecture, as I live and have
studied nearby I thought what a great
way to learn more and get a real physical
sense and feel of that history and drama!
What did you study?
I did a degree in Dance and then a
Masters in Theatrical Studies. Although
it doesn’t instantly sound like they
match with museum work, I’ve found
that they do help. I like to try to combine
performance with an object. The dance
has also helped me to be
disciplined in the research
role.
What do you enjoy most
about your role?
I really enjoy using my brain
in a way you don’t when
you’re dancing, you have to
be really careful not to make
mistakes and have a real
attention for detail.
What would you like to
be doing in five years
time?
I want to stay in London. Everything
about London draws me to it. The
history, the drama, the culture, the arts,
the buildings and the restaurants. One
day I would love to curate an exhibition,
including dance, performance, objects
and art! I think I would enjoy the
challenge and process of doing such a
thing. In the end I would like to work in
cultural heritage, and my volunteering
here is helping me to gain some much
needed experience.
Amaya was talking to Rachel Mentiply
late last year. The project Amaya was
volunteering for at that time has now
been successfully completed.
3

Summary of volunteer
activity
Here’s the usual summary of the Programme
as at December 2012. We now have 242
volunteers, with several people volunteering
for more than one role:
Directorate (15)
Assisting in the Press Office and Membership
Office. Helping to sell Membership of the
Museum to visitors. Researching the
Museum’s history to create a database of
statistics and other information.
Collections (16)
‘Cleaning up’ entries on the Collections
database. Listing and ‘housing’ paper-based
material. Assisting in the Textile Studio.
Creating boxing and protective sleeves for
paper objects. Listing, organising and
researching the ship plans and other Brass
Foundry collections.
Research & Planning (46)
Assisting readers on arrival in the Caird
Library—specifically with readers passes.
Drafting additional text for the ship portrait
catalogue. Assisting with work on the
Museum’s archives. Helping to sort modern
records.
Royal Observatory, Visitor Experience &
Communications (124)
Conducting escorted tours for visitors and
helping with events, such as Evenings with the
Stars. Assisting with administration & other
tasks. Assisting in the Horology Department.
Winding the clocks at the weekends.
Being a Visitor Support Volunteer & assisting
in a variety of ways such as welcoming tourists
off the river boats & in Greenwich (seasonal),
assisting visitors in the Compass Lounge &
assisting staff as they welcome visitors to the
Sammy Ofer Wing and Royal Observatory.
Conducting 25 minute escorted tours of the
Queen’s House and Neptune Court. Helping to
welcome visitors to the Queen’s House as a
Queen’s House Room Guide.
Operations & Human Resources (5)
Assisting in the Volunteers Office and in HR
department.
National Historic Ships (2)
General administrative support.
Youth Advisory Group (22)
Joining a group which gives young people a
voice in the Museum.
Exhibitions & Programmes (30)
Assisting the Family Programme with
children’s events. Assisting the Adult
Programme with their events. Joining the
Envelope Team and responding to ad hoc
requests for help with large mail outs.
[Launching soon - Sea and Me volunteers—
recounting maritime experiences.]
4

The Voyage of the
Ping Wo
The Ping Wo (‘Equitable Harmony’ in
Mandarin) was a flat bottomed river steamer
of 3105 tons, built in China in 1922, which
had operated on the Yangtze River between
Chongqing and Shanghai before she found
her way to Singapore.
How and why she arrived there in 1941, I
have been unable to discover. She was
requisitioned in December 1941 by the Royal
Navy and used to tow the destroyer HMAS
Vendetta, which was refitting there, to
Australia at 3 knots. She was then
commissioned by the Royal Australian Navy
in May 1942 and operated throughout the
Pacific War in a variety of roles.
In 1946 the RAN planned her return to the
pre-war owners and it was in April that year
that I had my first sight of her in Sydney
Harbour. I was one of a Royal Navy party
drafted to take passage in her to Hong Kong,
and as we boarded her the C.P.O. of the
regular RAN crew opined that it was very
unlikely we would complete the voyage. Given
that she had been described as a ‘clapped out
rust bucket’ by her first C.O. it was easy to
understand his pessimism, and mine! Our
sailing was delayed for 11 days till a cyclone
passed and we finally left on 20 April. It
would take much more space than I have here
to detail all the incidents encountered on the
voyage, but this brief narrative includes some
of them.
A severe leakage in our water tank developed
immediately and we put into Brisbane for
repairs. We then sailed, first to Townsville
and then on to Thursday Island off the tip of
NE Australia. We had to anchor every night
as the bridge compass developed a fault,
and there were obvious navigational
problems proceeding through the dangerous
Barrier Reef.
After an interesting stay at Thursday Island,
where I met some pearl divers, one of whom
had lost a leg to a shark, we wallowed across
the Gulf of Carpentaria to Darwin in a heavy
swell. The noise of the sea smashing up
against the sponsons was an unpleasant
accompaniment to our progress,
compounded by water flooding into the after
-hold through a cargo door on the waterline.
To our relief a shipwright on board was able
to cement the door, but soon after this our
steering gear broke down and we had to
drop anchor for the night 50 miles from
Darwin while repairs were effected. Darwin
itself at that time was a small town, still with
heavy bomb damage left over from Japanese
air raids in 1942.
Our progress from there across the Timor
Sea was interrupted when a rating on board
developed acute appendicitis and we had to
turn back, racing for 7 hours at 12 knots to
meet the cruiser HMS Euryalus, which had
fortunately just left Darwin for Sydney and
which sped north at her maximum speed. As
our normal designed speed was a rarely
obtained 10 knots it felt as though Ping Wo
would be shaken to pieces in this dash
which, however, had a happy outcome with
the rating having a successful operation after
being transferred to Euryalus.
Our passage through the Flores Sea was very
scenic, with a long string of volcanic islands
visible, some rising to 5000 feet. Many shore
navigational lights in these waters were still
missing at this time and as a result one night
we nearly ran aground on an island.
5

Proceeding through the Celebes Sea we
planned to call at Makassar but were warned
off by the Port Authority as the area still had
magnetic mines about and Ping Wo naturally
had no degaussing gear to deal with these. We
had therefore to proceed to Tarakan for
urgently needed supplies as we were virtually
out of water, and other stores were running
very low, but there were some hours of
tension till we were well out to sea again.
Tarakan, then in Dutch Borneo, had many
signs of defences erected during the Japanese
occupation. After some difficulty we secured
just enough water to last till our next port,
Manila.
Our passage there through the Sulu Sea was
happily made in calm conditions and a 4 day
stay in Manila was full of interest, including
the old walled Spanish city, a sharp contrast
to aspects of the American occupation. I
counted over 90 wrecks in the harbour still
waiting to be cleared. We sailed on the last leg
of the voyage to Hong Kong still very low on
water and stores, having had replenishment
problems again. We then encountered the
roughest seas of the whole voyage, and
we rolled so heavily at times that I thought
we might turn right over and fulfil the
gloomy forecast we heard when we joined
the vessel.
My relief when we finally entered Hong
Kong harbour on 8 June can be imagined. I
arrived weeks later than scheduled on 29
June at my final destination, the Japanese
naval base at Kure, to join HMS
Commonwealth, part of the Commonwealth
occupation force there, taking passage from
Hong Kong this time on the aircraft carrier
HMS Vindex, a vessel much more to my
liking! My time in Japan, which included
visits to Hiroshima before it was rebuilt, is
still a haunting memory, but a story for
another time.
Written by Derek Prince, Volunteer.
Inspired to write for us? Our next copy
deadline is:
Monday 2 April 2012
Max 900 words
6