Page 74 - RADC Bulletin 2021

Mobile dental unit used during Falklands War
importance the RADC has played in the dental care within the British Army. Having secured six venues in a relatively short amount of time I think is a testament and acknowledgement of the vital role the RADC has played within the British Army.
Despite our best efforts with our planning process, I don’t think any of us had foreseen a pandemic materialising in March 2020! The tour was due to begin in January 2021 at the National Army Museum before heading across the UK so we planned to use 2020
to collate all the archival material and photographs to accompany the exhibition. Having been given the order to work from home, the intermittent periods between the various lockdowns meant there was a lot less time than envisioned to pull the elements
for the exhibition together. It wasn’t until autumn 2020 that we began the process of identifying from the many boxes of material suitable photographs and documents to accompany the panels, scanning these to
be used. In total we used around 40 scans from the archives as well as utilising photos
RADC Exhibition a the Musuem of Military Medicine
donated from RADC personnel.
At the same time a number of papers were
being penned for publication in the British Dental Journal from Colonel Anderson and a number of RADC personnel. These papers would end up forming the basis of the text panels and their contribution to the success of the exhibition should not be discounted. Of course, the pandemic also had the effect of hampering our touring schedule. We had one of our venues pull out due to conflicts they now had within their own exhibition space but were fortunate that we had no other venues pull out. With a bit of juggling we were now able to put in place a revised touring schedule, starting here at the Museum of Military Medicine this past June with only a six-month delay, not a bad result considering!
With the material collated and our new revised schedule in place, mock up panels were produced in PDF format which were then sent off for printing. For the exhibition we utilised a system of ‘clever frames’ to hold the text panels in place as well as support
a series of accompanying images on the base. The benefit of these ‘clever frames’ is that they are fully free standing and can be configured into shapes to accommodate the different sized venues.
All in all, despite the challenges posed by the pandemic, the exhibition is finally touring. After a few months here at the Museum of Military Medicine the exhibition will begin its journey across the UK. I hope you will all get to see the exhibition at a venue near you!
17 May – 09 Jul 21
Museum of Military Medicine
19 Jul – 06 Aug 21
National Army Museum, London
30 Aug – 29 Oct 21
Chester Military Museum
08 Nov 21 – 14 Jan 22
Highlanders Museum, Fort George
24 Jan – 25 Feb 22
Green Howards Museum, Richmond
07 Mar – TBC 22
Cornwall’s Regimental Museum, Bodmin
RADC Exhibition a the Musuem of Military Medicine
72 RADC BULLETIN 2021
HISTORY