A curator's work is usually associated with historical ephemera and artefacts or ancient specimens. It is rare to get the opportunity to curate history as it happens. And then it happened here in Penzance, Cornwall yesterday when local woman, Helen Glover, and her partner Heather Stanning, won TeamGB's first Gold Medal in the London 2012 Olympics, while also being the first British women to ever win Olympic Gold in a rowing event. They won the Women's Pairs in 7 min., 27.13 sec., having already set an Olympic Record for the event of 6 min 57.29 sec. in the heats on 28 July on the Eton Dorney 2,200m rowing course.
The story
Helen and Heather have captivated the nation, not only because of their success, but because of the stories behind both women's entry into top-flight sport (Helen, an talented sportswoman, hockey player and PE teacher only started rowing in 2008). From a Cornish point of view, the win has placed a spotlight on the Duchy and on west Cornwall, particularly Newlyn where Helen grew up and Penzance where she went to Humphry Davy School.
Today's national papers were full of stories about the pair, albeit that their place on several front pages were significantly diminished by much more prominent photographs of Bradley Wiggins, with the exception of the Independent's i Newspaper and the Daily Mail who gave equal weighting to the two stories. Perhaps that's because his win came afterwards, or maybe because his win was considered the more significant? It isn't unusual, even today, for women's achievements to be considered slightly less newsworthy, especially when a male achievement has come hot on their heels. Olympic women's sport is reported differently to that of men, a report reveals. Although several have commented already on their feat's worthiness to make history.
New women's heritage
But as the Curator of a nationally-important collection on women, Helen Glover's achievements deserve to be recorded and collected for posterity as the best a positive female role model can offer. It is my job to ensure that Helen's story is preserved for Cornwall for future generations.
The opportunities for collecting have spanned digital and physical media, and of collecting memories. It's hard to be objective about collecting and recording major achievements like this. You tend to go into souvenir hunter mode, setting your sights on what you think is the most important and most auspicious, but as you will read below, that's not what recording for history is all about. When the whirlwind surrounding Helen's win dies down, it is even more important for the Elizabeth Treffry Collection to keep recording.
In just over 24 hours my collecting frenzy has taken me to places I might not usually go, to observe and absorb. So here it is, 24 hours of curating gold.
The view from Cornwall
Good luck Helen!
So read the headline in The Cornishman on 26 July, accompanied by a photograph of a beaming Helen. Then one of the many TeamGB Olympic gold medal hopefuls, she is quoted as saying that the "support she gets from the people of west Cornwall will give her an "extra edge" as she rows for gold..." By Saturday 28 July Twitter was abuzz with congratulations and excitement at Glover and Stanning's Olympic Record-breaking race during the first heat, being dubbed by some as a 'Cornish Olympic Record'. On 31 July further news was broadcast via Twitter that the race final would be screened at Penzance Hockey Club, where Helen used to play, and so it was here that I decided to start.
April 2012: 'New beginnings' are our watchwords as the spring months arrive.