Museum launches volunteer recruitment drive

A museum showcasing vintage trams and trolleybuses has launched a drive to recruit new volunteers.

The East Anglia Transport Museum, in Carlton Colville, Suffolk, described itself as "a living museum where vehicles of yesteryear can be seen in action and where half-forgotten sounds of the past are brought back to life".

The recruitment campaign was being led by volunteer Alfie Blanchflower, 16, who joined the museum when he was 14 and quickly became its youngest conductor.

Alfie said: "Since the Covid pandemic we have seen a big drop in volunteers and there have been some open days when I've been the only conductor on the trams and trolleybuses so we are quite short of volunteers."

According to its website, the museum, which started in 1965, said it was the only place in the British Isles where visitors can not only view, but also ride on all three principal forms of public transport from the earlier part of the 20th Century.

The museum said it was staffed entirely by volunteers.

Alfie said: "The youngest you can join is 14 but immediately you can start learning how to conduct our vehicles on site and on my first day here I started conductor training on the trolleybuses.

"The museum celebrates all things transport and we run our trams, trolleybuses, railway and diesel buses on our open days.

"We are launching a season-long volunteer recruitment campaign with the slogan 'Your Museum Needs You' in an effort to gain more volunteers."

A new poster has been produced for the campaign, featuring volunteer Charles Thorogood dressed in a traditional conductor's uniform.

Mr Thorogood said: "If you're interested in transport then this is the place to come."

The museum's origins date back to 1962 when four local tramway enthusiasts rescued the body of an old Lowestoft tramcar, no. 14, which was being used as a summerhouse in Gunton.

Following the acquisition, the East Anglia Transport Museum was founded on its present site in 1965 and transformed a disused meadow into a museum with depots, stores, workshops, administrative offices, refreshment facilities and toilets, as well as roads, tram tracks, overhead wiring and a light railway.

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