My Internship Experience

Internship Experience by Matthew O'Neill

The time I have spent at the Wordsworth Trust has been very special. I have been so fortunate to live and work in such a friendly and lively place, in a beautiful location. The working day can offer a variety of challenges and interesting experiences. I really enjoyed conducting guided tours of Dove Cottage and working with original journals of members of Wordsworth's family. Grasmere also offers an interesting social life. I was involved in the amateur drama and the badminton club. With quiz nights, poetry readings and parties for a variety of occasions throughout the year, there was usually something to do every night of the week!

2009

Allison Clough The Wordsworth Trust Interns by Alison Clough

I wandered lonely as a Cloud
That floats on high o'er Hills and Ferns,
When all at once I saw a crowd
A host of Wordsworth Trust Interns;
Along the Lake, beneath the trees,
On Thursday nights they're in Tweedies*.

The staff beside them smiled, and they
Felt comfortable and full of glee: --
No Intern could not but be gay
In such a laughing company:
They worked -- and worked - and often thought
What wealth the Internship had brought:

For oft when on their couches they lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They've been to Tweedies the night before
Or, perhaps, The Reading Rooms**,
There their hearts with pleasure fill,
And dance - just like the Daffodils.

2008

*Tweedies is a local pub
**The Reading Rooms is a local social club

A year in the Vale by Esther Rutter

My internship experience has been one of the best years of my life. Arriving at Dove Cottage after a major nervous breakdown, I was at first anxious that the isolation, combined with lack of money, would be too difficult to cope with for a whole year. Happily, I couldn't have been more wrong.

Working for The Wordsworth Trust is a pleasure and a privilege. The internship scheme is a mixture of public-facing museum work - giving guided tours, working in the shop, invigilating exhibitions - and the essential, almost secretive, 'behind the scenes' preparation. The poetry programme, exhibitions, publications, and talks given are meticulously planned and expertly implemented and the Trust gives you the opportunity to work closely on projects at what has been called 'the best literary museum in the world.'

The community in Town End is a fabulous mix of Trust stalwarts and new faces. Fellow interns create a ready and immediate circle of friends; poets and artists make sporadic visits to drink gin on our sofas and inspire us all; and the ever-friendly bar staff at Tweedies give a backdrop of normality to a somewhat bohemian existence.

One unexpected and unlooked-for joy of living in Grasmere is the scenery and landscape - or what might more properly be called the 'lakescape'. If you are a dedicated hill-walker or rock climber, this is the ideal place from which to explore the Lakes more fully; and even if your idea of a good walk is simply a stroll to the nearest pub, you are spoilt for choice in both route and destination. Wordsworth himself calls Grasmere Vale 'the loveliest spot that man hath ever found' and I am inclined to agree.

2009