An item I heard recently on the BBC World Service News caught my
attention: the plan to establish a Museum of the British Empire, which
will be located in Bristol.  I would like to hear more about this.

My interest is personal, for two reasons:
1 - I am a native Bristolian (though living abroad for many years);
2 - My brother and I both spent much of our childhood in colonial West
Africa (Nigeria and the Gold Coast, now Ghana), where our father worked
for many years as a telecommunications engineer in the Posts and
Telegraphs Department. The experience influenced both our subsequent
lives in various ways: he published books on the Benin expedition of
1897 (which I mentioned in a previous post) and on colonial town
planning. I went in for African Studies (to which field I have now
returned after an interval of 25 years, this time with Ethiopian Jews).

It occurs to me that "reminiscences and memorabilia of a colonial
childhood" could form a very fruitful research and exhibition topic for
such a museum.

Another idea: reconstructions of rooms from a colonial expatriate's
bungalow.  Items required: for example, mosquito nets, Flit-spray,
kerosene-lamps, charcoal-iron, water-filter, hanging bread-safe,
standard PWD-issue furniture, table-legs standing in paraffin-filled
tins (to protect against termites), "thunderbox" etc etc....
Background sound-effects: cicadas chirping, mosquitos buzzing, distant
African drums in the bush...
Ventilation by revolving ceiling-fan (for extra atmospheric effect: add
"pings" of flying insects hit by the blades!)
The cafeteria could offer "curry lunch", as served at the "Club" every
Sunday: extra-hot chicken curry with all the side-dishes.
After all these years, the memories come flooding back!

Margaret Hayon
Student of Museology, University of Haifa, Israel