Paws Around The Potteries - A Visit to the Spitfire Gallery

 Ay up, everyone!  It's me, Hanley Bear, with the first of my Paws around the Potteries posts about my home city of Stoke-on-Trent and the fun you can have here if you are a small bear.  

This one is about the new gallery at the Potteries Museum and Art Gallery which was built for the city's Spitfire.  Polar and Grizzly took me and my friends the Air Bears, Langwathby ("Langers") and Cosford Bear, to see it last week.

On the way there, we passed the Mitchell Memorial Theatre, named after Spitfire designer Mr R J Mitchell, who was born in Butt Lane near Kidsgrove and grew up near Longton, before moving to Southampton.  

There is a nice statue of him outside the museum.  He does not have a square grill on his head - that is part of the building behind him!

Us bears were pleased that our humans were going to have lunch before looking around, as we got to go to Violet's Cafe, which is in the museum right next to the Spitfire gallery.  It is named after a lady pilot called Violet Milstead, who was very brave and clever.

Grizzly had a jacket potato, but I gave him a hard stare as I wanted us to have oatcakes!

But it was nice, and we did have a great view of the plane from the cafe.

Finally, our humans finished their cups of tea and it was time to see the Spitfire close up.  

We promised to be good bears and not climb on things we weren't allowed to touch, and to get back in our Bear Bag if it got busy, so Polar let us out to explore.

We all ran across to the window then turned around so we could see the plane from the front.  It looked marvellous!  It is a Mark XVI version built in 1945, not long before the end of the Second World War and you might be able to see that it has 'clipped' wings.  

It probably didn't do any fighting, because it was built so late.  It has belonged to the museum since 1972 and has just had a lot of repairs and restoration work done to it, which is why it looks so shiny.

Next to the plane is a "Merlin" engine, split into sections so you can see how it works, if you are a human who understands engines and not a small bear who doesn't really.  I did some climbing on it but Polar caught me!  She put me back in the Bear Bag as it was time to go up to the viewing gallery, where there are more things to see about Mr Mitchell's life, including the other planes he designed, and what life was like in Stoke during the War.

We also saw a brilliant paper model of a Hurricane aircraft, which was almost as good as the Spitfire even though it's designer, Mr Sydney Camm, wasn't from Stoke-on-Trent.

The upstairs gallery was fairly quiet while we were there, so Polar let us run about and explore again.  We could watch the exhibits and the humans below us safely from the handrail, because there was a perspex screen in front of us.  You can just see Grizzly down by the Spitfire.

When we had finished exploring the top gallery, Polar said it was time to go.  We took a last look at the famous aeroplane, then jumped into our bag.

On the way out, we spotted a Dalek!  Luckily, it wasn't trying to exterminate anyone, so we climbed on it.

There is lots more to see in the museum, but we didn't have time to visit the other galleries that day.  The Air Bears had enjoyed their adventure and they agreed with me that Stoke-on-Trent is great and should have been City of Culture 2021 (not Coventry - booooo!).

Sonning says I can do another blog about another brilliant place in the Potteries soon, so look out for the next Paws Around The Potteries with me. Hanley Bear!