Poet-in-Residence Journal: Avro Heritage Museum, Woodford Cheshire (March-September 2026) Part 1

This journal offers a window into the day-to-day life of a poet-in-residence: the creative process, the doubts and breakthroughs. Each entry will reflect how a poet-in-residence develops craft, mindset, and connection through the handling and interpretation of historical material.

Avro Heritage Museum (March-September 2026)

I began my residency at Avro Heritage Museum, the former aviation site of Sir Alliott Verdon-Roe (1877-1958), British aircraft pioneer.

It has been two months since I've packed my notebook and fountain pen into the car and made the short journey through flat fields, and docile, grazing sheep, to Avro Heritage Museum. It was a bright morning. Sunlight bounced off the glazed windows on the new housing estate--a mini village with clear views of the Pennines. As I came through the green gates and into the museum grounds, I noticed the daffodils leaning north into the gentle wind blowing through the car park. I opened the door and stepped onto the tarmac. I was there to begin the first day of my residency.

It was a Tuesday--a day reserved for archivists and maintenance crews--a day when the museum was closed to the public. I arrived early, signed in at the reception desk, and followed the director across the hangar floors, with the famous Lancaster Bomber towering over our heads. We arrived in the staff room, with a clear view of the Vulcan from the bi-folding windows, shook hands with a few volunteers--all retired men, many over sixty, some ex-military pilots, most engineers and a few academics.

I exhaled, repeated that I was the poet-in-residence, "The poet-in-residence, yes," I said again.

"Are you a Pam Ayres, then?" one asked. For a moment I thought of Pam Grier, then realised who he meant. 

"No," I said. "Her poetry is quite different to mine."

"What does a poet-in-residence do?" he asked.

"A poet-in-residence listens, interprets and translates," I said.

He looked satisfied with the answer and rejoined his colleagues exchanging stories about an unknown aircraft one had spotted the night before.

"Maybe it was the satellite, Starlink," one said. "Did it look like a train set circling the sky?"

They laughed and changed the subject.

When the director was called away to the reception, I was left in the room listening to them teasing each other lovingly, and watching them gather around the hot-water dispenser on the wall with large mugs.

One pulled up a chair and began to tell me about his great-grandfather who had worked at the Works back when it was an aircraft assembly factory and aerodrome. He talked with a calm and quiet voice.

"We are expanding," he said. "All those houses you see over there," he paused, and pointed to the estate peeping over a low fence. "They weren't here back then. A.V. Roe needed cheap land to build another Works. That's why he came to Woodford in 1924 and he never looked back. We are getting a new building so we can exhibit more of the aircraft we currently have in storage or on loan."

I nodded, fighting back the urge to grab my notebook. Every piece of information was a way in--an opportunity to understand the museum and the people behind it. I was there to find the "heart" in Avro, the "pulse" within the veins. I listened until it was time for him to go. When I saw him an hour later, he was bending over a metal frame, painting a bomb trolley in a building, in temperature below zero.

After I was given a grand tour around the site, I was shown to the archives--men with their heads buried behind computer screens and leaning over aircraft diagrams--greeted me warmly.

"This is Christine Roseeta Walker, our writer and poet-in-residence," the director said. "Please help her to whatever files she needs."

Unknown to me, I was about to travel one hundred and twenty-five years back into the past--into 1901. The year of Queen Victoria's death, eleven years before the sinking of the Titanic and the outbreak of the First World War. My journey would begin in the days when Sir Alliott Verdon-Roe was still trying to find himself.

To be continued...

The story continues in part 2. Thank you for reading.

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Avro Heritage Museum Website: https://www.avroheritagemuseum.co.uk/