Hi all,
when I arrived back in the UK in '97, I walked straight into two jobs -
within two days of arriving in London. Of course I have both EU and
Australian passports which helps a bit. The problem was both jobs were both
part time (0.5) and highly dependent on funding, i.e. people being on sick
leave etc. Worse, there seemed to be some sort of resentment by management
that I was working at two places. Still things were pretty up beat with Beau
Blair just having been elected and there were lots of jobs being advertised.
Things ground to a halt pretty quickly though and I was soon getting letters
and calls delaying interviews. (I was rung up here in Australia 6 months
after I had returned to see if I was still interested in coming for an
interview for a job I had applied for two years prior.)
Thing is even with the right connections it is very difficult in the UK in
the museum sector. Most of the staff in the smaller museums are not full
time. And while I was boarding with a senior staff member of a large museum
that didn't really help either. In the end I worked for a large newspaper
group doing databases as I couldn't live on a 0.5 salary. Costs in London
are extremely high (although the high US dollar may help our US friends). I
was paying more for a room than the mortgage on my house here in inner
Melbourne. (It was cheaper to fly a mile on Concord than to travel a mile on
the London Underground and the likely hood of fire was greater.)
One slight glimmer of hope. At one of the museums I worked, there was a
reciprical internship with a New York University. (I had to show the intern
where London was on an atlas after two weeks. Geography was obviously not
taught in her courses!) She stayed eight weeks during summer. The internship
had been running quite a few years. The museum was run by two local
councils. So check with your Uni to see if they have any agreements and
check the web for council details.
No one has yet mentioned the MA course in Museum and Gallery Management that
was being run by a south London Uni (sorry my sister is going to lecture at
Cambridge Uni in a few weeks and she has all my maps etc). It was a full fee
course even for those of us with the right birth place. Meanwhile here I've
recently been rejected for an entry level curatorial job because I don't
have a Phd. It seem a MA is like a BA (Bugger All) was a few years ago. So
get those books out! I've already started.
Good luck
Andrew Renaut
...O divine lineage in mortal guise...

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