Chairman Mao Suit

For those that served in the Falklands War the kit layout picture may bring back some memories. But how does a curator, who was only just born at the time of the Falklands War, know what was used and worn in the Falklands?

We were asked by some film makers to create a Falklands kit layout, for veterans of the conflict to talk about for an upcoming documentary. A curator’s first instinct would be to check our collections management database to see what we have in the collection relating to the Falklands. Whilst we have an idea of kit and uniform were issued at the time of a conflict, this can often be very different to what was worn and used. Our database revealed that we had a lot of Argentinean material picked up during the conflict; helmets, weapons, ration packs, uniforms etc, but we had very few provenanced British items.

The next step was to take a look at books and accounts of Royal Marines at the time. Then to look at photos to identify what uniform they were wearing, how they carried the huge amounts of equipment, weapons and ammunition that they used.

Once we had a clear idea of what we were looking for, we then had to assemble the objects. In museums we store objects relating to types of objects. For example all arctic gloves are in the same boxes, respirators are stored on the same shelf etc. This means that assembling a simple kit layout can take a long time, going in and out of boxes and into different stores.

After the kit was assembled, the acid test was to get the Royal Marines veterans to critique what we had assembled. Which pattern of gaiters did they use? Did they wear their cold weather padded liners? These were questions that you can’t always answer from looking at photographs.

We will use this dialogue with Marines who served in the Falklands to improve our database records. We can also record colloquial or slang terms used for some of the objects and we can acknowledge why some bits of kits were chosen over others. The cold weather liners that we were unsure about were in fact used and referred to as ‘Chairman Mao’s’.

What started with a simple request can be a time consuming exercise. In this case it is one that has improved our cataloguing and knowledge of the subject and indicated areas for further collecting work.