Retiring Curator Highlights Veteran Conversations as Career’s Greatest Reward

David Willey, the curator of The Tank Museum in Bovington, Dorset, who is retiring after 25 years, stated that his “greatest pleasure” during his tenure was engaging in conversations with veterans. He has served as the museum’s curator for a quarter of a century. Mr. Willey noted that the museum welcomed a diverse array of visitors over that period. However, he found the veterans who shared their experiences to be the most memorable, particularly when their families were present to listen. He remarked, “If you ask that veteran the right questions, I always find it fascinating when you suddenly see the family behind them gathering round because he’s suddenly saying things they’ve not heard him say before.” He added, “Suddenly dad or grandad is talking in a way he’s not talked before and that’s quite something.” Consequently, he consistently advised school groups to engage their relatives in discussions about their past experiences while the opportunity remained. “When I was there in 2000 you were still getting coachloads of World War Two veterans on a day out, now it’s a major event if you find one,” he stated. He continued, “I always say to [children] ‘for goodness sake, if you’ve got someone there, it doesn’t matter what generation veteran, but go and talk to them for their stories’.” Mr. Willey observed significant transformations within The Tank Museum over the past 25 years. He recalled visiting the museum with his father in the late 1960s, describing it as “a lovely, lovely experience.” “But basically it was a shed full of tanks in rows,” he commented. He further recounted that initially, staffing levels were so low that employees “did everything,” which included tasks like unblocking toilets and selling deactivated firearms to generate funds for purchasing overalls for workshop personnel. “When you go from that to now, we’re a multimillion pound turnover organisation,” he stated, adding, “It’s quite weird trying to explain to people it’s not always been like this.” According to Mr. Willey, the museum’s primary future responsibility involves conveying the contemporary relevance of military history, particularly concerning the current situation in Ukraine. He expressed, “I always worry slightly that we’re forgetting there’s now a war in Europe… our own contemporary army is having to train for that.” He elaborated, “There’s more of a relevance. It’s not just that abstract bit of history that we can look back on or make the model about, there’s a much more contemporary ‘here we go again’ moment… when you listen to some of those stories.”