Making history

It was a land named Northumberland and one in which Irishwoman Miriam Harte has immersed herself for three years as director of the museum Bede's World in Jarrow, during the museum's most successful period in its history - a period when it received £4m to expand.

But now, Miriam is to take on the task of explaining to us, the people of the North-East, another more familiar period in our region's hard, but sometimes highly successful, history.

She has been appointed as director of the region's biggest open air museum, Beamish, known throughout Europe and based near Stanley, in County Durham. The scale of the job of running the multi-million pound, interactive large scale centre - which concentrates on the years 1825, the year of the first passenger railway in Darlington, and 1913, when the North-East had become a highly industrialised region - is one of the most prestigious in the region.

The job came up after former director Peter Lewis quit. At the time he left, he was the subject of an internal investigation after accusations were made that he had been intercepting mail destined for the Friends of Beamish.

Now 40-year-old Miriam is hoping she can give the museum a fresh impetus, although she remains tight-lipped about any plans she might have. "It's a question of wait and see," she says. "All I would say is there are no free lunches and we must pay our way as much as possible."

Talking to Miriam, you get the impression that finding herself in charge of Beamish is an adventure, and also something of a surprise, for her. It is only a few years since this highly-successful accountant, a Trinity College, Dublin, law graduate, gave up work altogether.

At the time, about three years ago, she was a high flyer at consumer goods manufacturers, Proctor and Gamble, was based in Newcastle for about a decade and had devoted herself to her work for almost 20 years. "I was sick of the merry-go-round," she says. "I wanted to marry what I enjoyed to what I actually did. I had peace, I had time and I had a lot of fun for about a year."

She did some voluntary work, took up an MA in Cultural History and did "a lot of lunching". Then the job of director at Bede's World, a then relatively small institution but one which had just been allocated £4m from the National Lottery, took her fancy.

Miriam loved museums but had never worked in one before. She was taken on for her financial background, was a major success, secured a visit to the museum from the Queen last December, and the rest, as they say, is history.

She had no intentions of moving on until the Beamish job came up and it proved just too tempting.

"I admit I didn't think I had much of a chance," she said. "It's the best job in the field. I came up with a few ideas to the board but I knew they had probably heard it all before and I told them that. There are things I would like to think about for the place, but I'm just going to have a good look first."

She becomes serious when she talks about her new job which she will start this summer, she tells of how she regards herself as a well-informed, enthusiastic amateur when it comes to history, but an expert on management and finance. And she is serious about the role of museums in the North-East community, a community she says she feels part of after all her years here. Perhaps it is the seriousness of a single woman married to her work.

But she also has a ready laugh and a good line in a funny story. "People are always winding me up and we have good fun," she smiles. "Just the other day I had a call from a journalist friend based in Newcastle. 'What do you have to say about the big fire at your museum?', he asked. I died a thousand deaths. Of course, it was nothing but a joke."

Jokes, hard work and getting bums on seats, or at least on the Beamish tram. With Miriam, the already highly-successful Beamish Museum could have yet another chapter in its saga, a new part to play telling the story of our region's remarkable history.