{"id":37025,"date":"2017-11-27T12:46:19","date_gmt":"2017-11-27T12:46:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jomec.co.uk\/altcardiff\/?p=37025"},"modified":"2017-11-27T12:46:19","modified_gmt":"2017-11-27T12:46:19","slug":"cardiff-character-cindy-howells","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/altcardiff\/2017\/11\/27\/cardiff-character-cindy-howells\/","title":{"rendered":"Cardiff Character: Cindy Howells"},"content":{"rendered":"

The National Museum\u2019s palaeontology curator talks about daily life in the department, displays, and of course, dinosaurs.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Cindy

It\u2019s half term at Cardiff\u2019s National Museum<\/a>. Children are everywhere, wide-eyed with excitement at the sight of towering reptiles which don\u2019t so much seize their imaginations as acquire the title deeds. For many, the intrigue of dinosaurs wears off within a few years; but for Cindy Howells, the museum\u2019s curator of palaeontology, it has never left.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI think it was seeing the Natural History Museum that did it for me,\u201d she says thoughtfully. \u201cWe had an annual trip, and I loved seeing the fossils and the cases each time.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The teacher you always wanted to have but never did, Cindy (54), is one of the friendliest and most affable people you could ever wish to meet. Her enthusiasm for the subject is infectious, matched only by her love of orderliness.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a born curator,\u201d she says happily, \u201cI\u2019m the sort of person who\u2019ll put books on the shelf by matching all the reds or all the greens \u2013 and naturally in alphabetical order, of course.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"museum,

Changing times<\/strong><\/p>\n

Originally from Guildford, Cindy was first drawn to the field of palaeontology because it took science out of the lab and into the outdoors. It\u2019s an exciting way to conduct research \u2013 albeit with a higher potential for destruction. On one such occasion, the curator herself was responsible for bringing a fossil simultaneously into and out of existence.<\/span><\/p>\n

Looking back, she can at least see the funny side: \u201cIt wasn\u2019t too bad, but imagine we\u2019ve discovered a new dinosaur bone that we didn\u2019t know in an area that wasn\u2019t supposed to have anything in it and you\u2019ve smashed it. So that was fun.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\u201cThere was no paperwork, no performance indicators – it was brilliant!\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

She began working at the museum as a volunteer, followed by two years in manpower services before she was finally offered a permanent job there. 32 years on, and it\u2019s fair to say she\u2019s at the heart of the department, having brought the Dinosaur Babies exhibition<\/a> to the city earlier this year.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, with the mounting number of legal procedures, Cindy can\u2019t help but long for simpler times. \u201cIt\u2019s still good now, but in the early days you could just walk in off the galleries as a volunteer after lunch and get on with your stuff down here,\u201d she wistfully recalls. <\/span>\u201cThere was no paperwork, no performance indicators, no targets\u2026 ah, it was brilliant!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

See some of Cindy’s favourite fossils below:<\/strong><\/p>\n