Do you remember paste sandwiches?

I’m currently a digitising volunteer, one of four on The Novium Museum in Chichester’s Shippam’s project. I recently wrote a blog post for the Novium’s website, but let me tell you a bit about it here too. I volunteer every other week as part of a wider team digitising, cataloguing, and repacking objects from the Shippam’s Company archive. We are currently working on some very striking, mid-century, shop advertising.

Shippams were a local potted meat and fish company that had success worldwide. They were innovative in their tv and print advertising. The Novium was awarded an Arts Council England grant to unlock the archive of advertising materials that I am helping to digitise. It will culminate in an exhibition in 2025.

Growing up, I was always a museum visitor with my family, whether near home in Hampshire or when holidaying. If we weren’t discovering about naval ships or family history, we were having a go at archaeology. Unsurprisingly, after studying Textile Art, I stayed at Winchester School of Art for an MA in Museums and Galleries. After working front-of-house in various Winchester museums, I later concentrated on both a textiles career and my busy young family.

The Novium has been our local museum now for many years and a trip always holds something new, from blasting off in Tim Peake’s space lift (and dressing up as an astronaut), to pretending we are taking a dip in the bath house and spending lots of time in the ever-popular LEGO exhibitions. When I saw the call for volunteers to work on the Shippam’s project in The Novium’s newsletter I was intrigued.

My mother-in-law had mentioned to me once that she had been to Shippam’s on a school trip, which I thought an unusual place to visit, but she also went to the sewage works on a trip – it was the 1950s! My own memories of Shippam’s (or Princes as I remembered the company latterly) were mostly as 1980s paste sandwiches, and the factory on Terminus Road. However, my mother-in-law had lots of memories of fun advertising, local events, and bringing home a wishbone from the factory tour with her school.

There was clearly a lot more to Shippam’s than I thought… I decided to apply and was very pleased to be assigned a digitisation role.

Having spent a significant portion of my earlier career working in museums, I had found myself missing that environment and especially the hands-on work. My more recent work has been in a freelance capacity, (and working by myself), so I’m thoroughly enjoying being part of a group again. It’s lovely being able to reconnect with the museum community, apply and brush up on my skills in a meaningful way, and contribute work on such an interesting project.

Since starting at the beginning of June, I have been scanning and adding information to the catalogue along with my teammates Holly, and latterly, Rose. At the same time, other members of our morning team repack and catalogue on the other side of the room, all overseen by Shippam’s Project Officer, Sally.

It’s early days, but we are encountering some wonderful designs – each time we open a box there is something different to see. Shippam’s were very innovative with their advertising, and there is much more to selling meat and fish paste than you can possibly imagine – just wait until you see the exhibition next year! But for now, as a taster, you can visit the first floor of the museum in Chichester to see three fascinating display cubes of Shippam’s objects that start to tell the story.

I’m really enjoying playing my small part in the wider project and seeing where it goes!