Sunday 27 February 2011

Clive of Arcadia

On a Sunday morning in Arcadia as on any other morning there is nothing more uplifting than visiting a museum.  Invariably, this means searching through endless boxes in the Lock-Up or opening a drawer that has been closed for months.  But in some cases it means visiting a genuine museum, a collection of artefacts painstakingly and longingly put together by an obsessive at great personal cost purely for the good of others' souls.

The Richard Wheatley Museum http://www.richardwheatleymuseum.org/ is such a place.  It is dedicated to the work of the Wheatley family who manufacture fly boxes and have done so since the 1850's.  The curator of the museum a gentleman called Mr. Clive Edwards who lives in the western most extent of Arcadia in the town of Torquay.  Whenever I find an interesting Wheatley Box I immediately telephone Mr. Edwards in case it is one that he has yet to have seen.  I urge you to do the same and to visit the collection if you have not already done so.