A series of scarecrows returned to Leeds Industrial Museum (LIM) for their second year
The scarecrows aims to help entertain and educate families that visit the museum.
Louise Denton, who works at LIM, and the maker of the Victorian and Staff scarecrows, said: “We wanted to put on a trail for children that had something to do with Halloween but nothing too scary, and we were trying to think of things that were autumnal.”
“I just wanted to show how dangerous it was”
Ms Denton said that at the start of the first scarecrow trail it was a “learning curve.”
“I wasn’t quite sure how to make them stand up with them all not falling down. It was almost like how do I get his trouser to stay up.
“luckily, in our old store room, I found some braces and use them to pin his trouser up and hang over. Otherwise I’m not quite sure what I would’ve done. I probably would’ve to sow the trouser to his shirt – I was just a bit like: ‘Oh no, how do I stop them from falling down’.”
Source: Om Kumar | All Rights ReservedWhen asked about her Victorian children scarecrow for the second year, she said: “Children used to work in the mills back in the Victorian days, and I just wanted to how dangerous it was. When they were on the spinning mill that they could get scalped or could lose fingers. So I tried to create a couple of scarecrows that reflected just how dangerous but without it being too gory.
“It’d be nice to expanded it [the scarecrow trail], and hopefully next year more outside, it’s just having the time for everyone to do it.”
“It doesn’t have to be all dry and academic”
Lewis Fraser, who works at LIM, was another person who designed one of the scarecrow – the legs stuck in the machine.
They said they made them “quite quickly.”
“I never made a scarecrow before. I had to work out how to stuff it, how to make it seems as mildly life like as it can. I wanted one of the legs to have rigidity so they weren’t both flopping over the edge – one was sticking up and one was flopping down.
“so I had to, in quite a short space of time, fashion a wooden stick to the right length so it could have that.”
Source: Om Kumar | All Rights ReservedHowever, there was issues when making the scarecrow that delayed it debut.
“Real people got injured and died in this mills and mills like it. And so, one of the discussion ones was ‘how do you not make of that?’ So, my point of view If we make it silly enough and not gory (…) I think that’s cartoonish enough but also not disrespectful.
“Personal, my view as an individual is that I think we should talk more about it, and that it can be done in a way that is, y’know, doesn’t have to be all dry and academic.”