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An interview to David Clough
David Clough, 33 years
old and a handsome guy (apologies for this comment to Mrs Clough),
is the director of Kilmartin House Trust.
Tell us something about your work... I'm
not an archaeologist. My role has been in the infrastructure, so
raising the money, managing the building, controlling the team of
people who are working here and making this system financially sustainable.
We don't get any grants. I have to go to the local Council and say
"Please, we are doing a very good job here". But the people who
run the education department... They can't see the use for a museum
because they are so behind!
How does the Kilmartin House Trust is organized ?
This is a charitable trust, so there is no one making a profit
or share holdings. It's just ten young people who started working
for nothing. But we still owe the bank and another people another
£ 150,000 which is a lot of money. And the money we take in
the cafe and the shop is not enough to keep ten people yet. But
within a year this will change.
In the museum there are just a few artifacts. Why?
Kilmartin has been a Mecca. People for two centuries kept coming
an taking things away. There is nothing left. We have monuments
but we don't have any artifacts. So starting a museum was difficult
because it had to be done 100% on loans. So, I had to go to the
British Museum and to Edinburgh saying "Please, what do you want
to do?" At the British Museum in London they took things out of
their cases and said "We'd be delighted if you took them back home:
Kilmartin is the best place for them". Edinburgh, the other way
round: they think the best place for their material is Edinburgh,
so we've been fighting. Edinburgh has got a 70 millions pounds new
museum in november. They prefer building a new museum in Edinburgh
instead of supporting satellite things as here.
What's wrong with big museums?
I think that all the big museums are just too big. We have a problem
in Scotland, where the rural areas are definitely low. The people
who make decisions are in Edinburgh. They never lived in the country,
they only occasionally visit. I don't want to take everything from
Edinburgh and put it in Kilmartin. There should be two exhibitions:
one in Edinburgh and one here. But they don't talk a compromise:
they want everything in Edinburgh and nothing here.
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