The working life of Museum of London

Last week, my colleague Mia, asked me to write about myself and how I came to work at the Museum of London Group as Diversity Manager.

Now how did I land here at 45 years of age, and in London of all places? See I was born in that beautiful place called Cape Town in South Africa – ever been? It is written on the doors of the London black cabs as one of the places you must visit before you die!

I grew up as a girl called “coloured” (a very bad term there then , like calling someone “pikey” or “paki” here today). A major part of my life (like most South Africans my age and older) has been a struggle just for basic human rights which I only got as a right to vote and citizenship at the age of 32 years – I was already then a proud mother of two lovely boys (who were also born into apartheid). Fortunately the one was eight (who spent his early days campaigning with me and being dragged to endless meetings to free Mandela. The other one was two when apartheid ended, so fortunately was saved from much of the trauma of living in a country where we did not enjoy human rights. I am telling you this because I want you to understand where my passion for diversity and equality in heritage comes from and how this connects to my present job.

In South Africa, I was determined to fight for human rights and to survive an evil system. I worked my own way into the University of Cape Town and taught myself English (Afrikaans is my first language). I enrolled for a course in History and also in Archaeology. And I was not sorry. My world opened up. I became interested in museums, culture and in what it is that makes us all so different yet from the same human race. I also worked in museums on how to change them from telling the old story which had casts of my ancestors (the Khoisan people) along with animals and plants on display. I also worked in the Medical Museum of Cape Town to look at how we can include indigenous medicines and knowledge of the Khoisan and African people in telling the story of the history of medicine in South Africa.

After marrying a Londoner (a Kingston university computer scientist who shares my passions for equality and human rights), I found myself in this place of the world and I had to find a new job! I landed the job as Diversity Manager of Museum of London Group.

In the coming weeks I will talk about a typical week in my role and about the types of discussions I’m involved with.