Visitors to the Diving Museum may have noticed that it is very damp in parts – thanks to being an old, underground, earth-covered building. It means that paper doesn’t survive very well in those conditions. SO … to preserve our archives (and overflow exhibits) we store them in a WW2 ARP bunker a few minutes’ drive away.
When we took over the bunker it was in very poor repair and leaking like a sieve. Thanks to all our hard-working volunteers who have put hours and hours of work into cleaning, sealing and painting (the interior) of the building we now have a building to be proud of (and a safe repository for our reference library).
Nigel Phillips has led the way and all our volunteers have helped in whatever capacity they can to get this far. Recently their efforts have been directed at reducing the level of soil outside the bunker (getting it back to pavement level) in preparation for landscaping the street view.
A group of young Royal Navy recruits volunteered to come and have a back-breaking day out helping us to shift the soil around the bunker. They made it look easy but it was really hard work and we are very grateful to all of them. Well done lads. You are a credit to yourselves and the Navy. Thank you for all your hard work.
