Where would you find a trundling long-eared hedgehog, an Australian orbicular granodiorite and a vomiting fulmar? The answer lies a few minutes walk from The Royal Mile in Edinburgh, in the newly refurbished National Museum of Scotland.

From 17th Century Japanese Noh theatre masks to the beautiful Nubian sandstone Statue of Arensnuphis, The National Museum of Scotland houses treasures from all over the world.

There is a custom-made coffin, shaped like a Mercedes-Benz that was made in Accra, Ghana and a Tibetan prayer wheel house that was made closer to home at Kagyu Samye Ling Monastery in Scotland, Europe’s oldest and largest centre for Tibetan Buddhism. The copper prayer wheels within the house were made in Nepal.

Children can experience life in the fast lane with a full size Formula One racing car driving simulator, or can step into a Gemini space suit to discover what it would be like to be an astronaut.

In the Animal World gallery an Ocean Sunfish that is nearly 3.5 metres tall hangs suspended in mid air with an enormous crocodile and a pod of dolphins, while down on Level 1 a pride of lions and a 12 metre-long skeleton of a T-Rex prowl around.

The museum’s interactive displays are superb with entire walls filled with video screens and presentations. A film that played in the Restless Earth gallery showed footage of volcanoes erupting, the Asian Tsunami and Japanese earthquake with a rolling selection of quotes. The most poignant one, I found, was by John Muir – the Scottish born American Naturalist which said simply:

“When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.”

On the ground floor the Grand Gallery houses the largest items on display in the museum. A 12-foot long carved wooden feast bowl from Atiu, one of the Cook Islands in the South Pacific, stands close to the enormous dioptic Inchkeith lighthouse lens designed in 1889 by David A Stevenson, a descendant of Robert Stevenson.

At the far end of the gallery a bronze statue of the Buddha Amida meditates with his hands resting in the dhyana mudra position, hands in his lap, palms facing upwards and the tips of his thumbs touching the index fingers.

The National Museum of Scotland covers eight floors of a stunning Victorian building. With over 20,000 objects displayed in 36 galleries it is a brilliant place for a day out at any time of the year. It’s a ten-minute walk from the train station in Edinburgh and, incredibly, the admission is free.

For more details please visit www.nms.ac.uk.

by Katherine Wildman © 2011

Katherine Wildman is a freelance creative copywriter based in Cullercoats and holds an MA in Creative Writing (with Distinction).

If you need the words for your new website, a new company brochure or a regular SEO blog to increase your online presence please get in touch with her on 07186 763393 or at katherine@wildmanwrites.co.uk.

John Fred Horseman is a local artist who “likes art and likes steam”. These two very diverse elements have combined throughout his lifetime to form a collection that has been shown in the Laing Art Gallery, exhibited outside The Baltic and featured in national magazines.

Mr Horseman’s sculptural work ranges from two beautiful wooden seahorses, carved out of wood from the bed he was born in, to the imposing sculpture of a bison that was exhibited in the Laing’s ‘Exhibition of Work by Artists of the Northern Country’ in 1955.

In 1974 Mr Horseman finished a work that was featured in Model Engineer Magazine as ‘one of the best engines of the century’. His creation, a 4 ¼ inch scale model Burrell traction engine, took six years to build and was affectionately named ‘Mr Rusty’ after a horse owned by his late sister, Jill.

‘Mr Rusty’ was Mr Horseman’s first attempt at building a traction engine and, he said, “Everything made for the Burrell was my first attempt so inevitably several parts were made two or three times. Materials sourced from scrap yards were taken to fashion the engine’s component parts and finished using a lathe from a local ship breakers. The gears were particularly tricky to get right.” The machine was last in steam in 1996.

While creating ‘Mr Rusty’, Mr Horseman had several other artistic projects on the go. One of which was helping his friend, Mich Glenn, restore a full size generating steam traction engine, The Fowler Empire Pride.

“We had a big shed in Whitley Bay”, Mr Horseman told me “and with another friend, Arthur Mason, we enjoyed long hours transforming this beast into a magnificent showman’s engine which was renamed ‘The Iron Duke’. I bought a living van from Northumberland County Council for £12 to attach onto the back and we used to eat our lunches in there with our families.” The living van is now at The Beamish Museum.

A large oil painting of the Iron Duke, which was finished in 1967, is one of Mr Horseman’s more colourful creations. The twisted brass decorations of the engine glow and shine beneath his skilled brushwork and the men who are shown in the painting, Mr Horseman included, look suitably proud of their endeavours.

One of the more recent works by this local artist is a creation called ‘Modern Art is a Trail of Rubbish’ which involved the artist pulling a string covered in crushed drinks cans behind him on one of the recumbent bicycles he has designed and built.

So, if you see an artistic looking gentleman cycling past you on a recumbent bicycle along the seafront, do give him a wave. He’s a local treasure.

by Katherine Wildman © 2011

Katherine Wildman is a freelance copywriter and photographer based in Cullercoats who is currently studying for an MA in creative writing at Northumbria University.

She can supply quality written copy and photography for websites, sales letters, press adverts, email campaigns, press releases, brochures and articles.

Contact her by email at kewildman@me.com or on Twitter @skinnycap.