CHRISTINE RUSSELL reports on how artist Joanne B. Kaar and school pupils from Thurso were inspired to make their own hats in honour of local naturalist Robert Dick.

CAITHNESS Horizons in Thurso joined museums all over Scotland this past weekend by getting into the spirit of Spring with four unique children’s art workshops to highlight its Robert Dick collection.

The Festival of Museums was created and supported by Museums Galleries Scotland to celebrate Scotland’s wealth of culture with day and night-time events scheduled to take place from 13 -15 May 2011. The festival offered locals and tourists a range of cultural experiences intended to ‘ignite imaginations’.

A hat to keep it under

‘Keep It Under You Hat’ was a colourful project devised by artist Joanne B. Kaar and Caithness Horizons, designed especially for the Festival Of Museums.  The aim was to introduce young people of Thurso to just one of the stories represented by Caithness Horizons’ museum collection, and to inspire them to be aware and proud of an aspect of their local heritage.

Robert Dick

Robert Dick, a 19th-century Thurso baker, lived parallel lives.  By night he wrought dough into bread and biscuits, ready for his housekeeper to sell next day. Once free of the bake-house, however, Dick’s passion in life was to tramp the extensive coast, shores and blanket bog of Caithness, looking for plants and fossils to add to his personal collections.

What distinguished Dick from contemporary natural history enthusiasts was his single-mindedness; his tenacity in attempting to make comprehensive collections of all British flora, including the discovery along Thurso River that Northern Holy Grass was not after all extinct; and his understanding of how his discoveries of geology and fossils contributed to the research being done at the time by men such as Cromarty’s Hugh Miller, and pioneering geologist Sir Roderick Murchison.

The idea for ‘Keep It Under Your Hat’ emerged from Joanne B. Kaar’s personal research on the life of Robert Dick.  Joanne formed an early professional relationship with Caithness Horizons when the Thurso museum, gallery and community venue opened its doors to the public in December 2008.

Fibre artist Joanne created a visual art display to complement the exhibition of plants, fossils and other artefacts which belonged to Robert Dick. Fascinated by his collection of plants, and by the personal story of the man himself, Joanne has been making a photographic record of Dick’s herbarium, part of Caithness Horizons’ collection.  ‘Keep It Under Your Hat’ allowed her to share her own enthusiasm with school-age young people, introducing them to his work in a fun way.

“I thought children could relate to a man who used to stick his plant specimens under his hat to keep his hands free on his long walks,” said Joanne.  “I showed the youngsters how to make a simple chimney pot hat, similar to the one Robert Dick himself would have worn, and then decorate it with insects, plants, letters – things we know he was intrigued by, or would have used.  We know he used to wrap plant specimens in old newspaper, old bills – whatever came to hand, and the children thought it was very funny that one wrapping he used was an old newspaper ad. that was offering payment to folk who’d bring in their old unwanted false teeth!”

Pupils from Primary 7 at Mount Pleasant Primary School in Thurso spent a day making hats, then delighted museum visitors and staff by wearing them as they later explored the Robert Dick display itself.  Locals would also have spotted the very dandily dressed pupils as they walked back over the Ellan Bridge to school.  Class teacher Mrs Firth reported that a gust of wind caught one hat on the way, but most survived, and one pupil was heard asking if they could wear their hats for school assembly that afternoon.  Two more workshops were held on Saturday.

Mount Pleasant pupils at work on the hats with Joanne

As Caithness Horizons Education & Community Officer, I thought the event was an ideal way to engage young people with history.  By all accounts Robert Dick was a very modest man uninterested in personal glory.  He’d probably have been astounded to learn his activities had inspired such events and activities, but I think he also kept something of a child’s curiosity and sense of wonder about the world and the things in it, so I think he’d have been chuffed to see children walking past his house in Wilson Street wearing these hats.  Joanne’s enthusiasm for the subject rubbed off on the youngsters, and I’m sure they’ll now remember their very own local hero.

Caithness Horizons will be hosting a free ‘Robert Dick Walk’ on Saturday 28 May as part of the Caithness & Sutherland Walking Festival, organized by Wick Paths Project.  Anyone interested in this, or in the Robert Dick Collection, can visit Caithness Horizons in Thurso seven days a week: Mon- Fri. 10am-6pm; Sun. 11am-4pm.  Tel.  01847 896508 or e-mail info@caithnesshorizons.co.uk .

© Christine Russell, 2011

Links

• Caithness Horizons
• Joanne B Kaar