Laura’s history

We met at university, studying Anglo-Saxon, Norse, and Celtic. Laura loved Anglo-Saxon history and palaeography. Her love of manuscripts started earlier. She described looking at a reproduction of the Lindisfarne Gospels with her grandmother. Laura said “It’s so old!”. Her grandmother replied “I don’t like it because it’s old, but because it’s beautiful.”

In our last year at university, Laura revived the Troubadours, the university medieval music society. She broadened it out from a single hurdy-gurdy player to a fabulous group of enthusiastic amateurs. It was important to her to welcome everyone, in contrast to some university music groups. It was a highlight of our time at university, and we remained in touch with several members.

When Laura moved up to Newcastle after we graduated, her first job was at Past Times. She made great use of her staff discount, albeit on less than the minimum wage, a couple of years before such a minimum wage existed in this country.

Laura then spent a couple of years in the funding sector, and during that time published her article Some Anglo-Saxon Cuthbert Liturgica: The Manuscript Evidence. This prefigured her association with Bede, and built on her work with early music, specifically neumatic notation.

Laura then landed the job of Museum and Education Manager at Bede’s World in Jarrow. She was thrown in at the deep end, promptly being required to tell some of the specialist craftsmen who were building the reconstructed Anglo-Saxon village that their work was finished, and their contracts would not be renewed. It affected her deeply, as a young southern woman, newly appointed, affecting the livelihood of incredibly skilled northern craftsmen.

Laura then did something which probably defined her professional character. She knew that the Lottery-funded huge capital project to build an enormous new museum was very close to its proposed grand opening. However, she strongly believed that the interpretation for the permanent exhibition was not good enough. Laura understood the implications of this, and yet told truth to power, in arguing to the board that the opening should be postponed. They were persuaded by Laura’s authority, and the opening was put back.

Laura then threw herself into every aspect of getting the museum ready for opening. She edited, rewrote, and argued every interpretation panel. For her, the cardinal importance was to show what an extraordinary place of worldwide significance Wearmouth-Jarrow was. She railed against designers’ obsession with Vikings, arguing with characteristic dryness that concentrating on the people who destroyed monasteries was probably not preferable to celebrating those who lived and worked within them.

After a successful opening, Laura worked tirelessly to promote Bede’s World’s primary raison d’être: to educate and inspire people about Anglo-Saxon England and Bede. Her drive for authenticity was what motivated her. In her time at Bede’s World, she edited a new guide book, wrote and collaborated on temporary exhibitions, organized academic lectures, and was the voice of authenticity for the reconstructed Anglo-Saxon farm.

Laura’s academic side did not preclude the everyday logistics and realpolitik of working for an independent museum. She built partnerships and repaired damaged relationships. Her funding knowledge was a huge benefit to the museum. She helped commission artwork - always authentic to the museum’s core purpose - and brought international scholars, curators, musicians, and authors to Jarrow to give talks and performances. She smiled as our dog Max barked at John Prescott.

Laura was humbled to work with scholars such as Michelle Brown and Professor Rosemary Cramp. Professor Cramp’s death hit Laura harder than she expected it to. She would utterly dismiss the comparison, but her standing inside a collapsed septic tank had a similar vibe to Professor Cramp weeding the Bede’s World garden.

Laura naturally became centrally involved in the gathering momentum behind the bid for World Heritage Status for Wearmouth-Jarrow. When a full-time job was created to work on the bid, she knew she had to apply, though she was torn in two at the thought of leaving Bede’s World. Several intense years of partnership management, academic research and writing, and community building followed.

The World Heritage Status bid was rejected. This hit Laura hard. For it to fail after so much work, and for such unfair reasons, was a bitter pill to swallow. For her to have left Bede’s World in order to work towards it was very upsetting.

Laura’s professional involvement with Anglo-Saxon history and palaeography largely ceased after that. Bede’s World subsequently closed down. While this is hardly a disinterested opinion, perhaps it would have survived with such a passionately informed historian and multidisciplinarian as Laura back with the museum. Who knows?

Laura’s love for history, and Anglo-Saxon in particular, was lifelong. My belief is that the long long unpaid hours she worked above and beyond to get the museum to a quality fit for opening took its toll on her. She learned a pattern of overwork and stress, and this carried on through the rest of her career. But I don’t think she would have missed it for the world.