Meet Becky White: Volunteers’ Week 2026

Becky White’s connection to Weald & Downland Living Museum is not a simple story. It has roots that go back to childhood, threads that run through her family, and a present chapter she clearly has no intention of closing. Eight years into her time as a volunteer, she describes her reasons for being there as “multi-faceted”, and she means it.

The first strand begins decades ago. Becky came to the museum as a child, including on a school visit that left a lasting impression. She remembers helping to build a Saxon hut up in the woods, and the warmth with which she recalls it says everything about the kind of experience Weald & Downland creates for young visitors. Those memories stayed with her long after the visit ended.

The second strand is her mother. A volunteer at the museum for some twenty-three years, her mother had built a life around her time at Weald & Downland Living Museum, until the point when she could no longer drive herself there. Concerned that her mother was missing out, Becky offered to bring her. It was, by any measure, a generous thing to do. What happened next was perhaps inevitable. “The first time I brought her up, what did I do? I signed up as a volunteer, didn’t I?” She has not looked back.

There is something quietly lovely about that. A daughter who came to support her mother ended up finding her own place at the Museum; and in doing so, continued a family connection that now spans over three decades between them.

What Becky loves about volunteering, she finds difficult to reduce to a single thing. The other volunteers and staff feel like family to her. The site itself she admires for what it is not: “In my view they haven’t overpacked it.” There is space to breathe, the agricultural land, the gardens, the historic houses, the woodland, and that breadth means there is always something different to engage with.

Her own role reflects that variety. She has worked as a tutor cook at Whittaker’s Cottages, stepping into the interpretation of domestic life with the confidence of someone who enjoys bringing history alive. More recently she has been spending her time in the gardens, and her enthusiasm for it is obvious. But the thread connecting everything she does is her background: Becky is a retired teacher, and that instinct to share, explain and spark curiosity never goes away.

It shows most clearly when the children visit. The look on a child’s face when they discover something new, that particular expression of surprise and delight, is something Becky notices and clearly treasures. For a former teacher who came to the Museum first as a child herself, there is a completeness to that.

Weald & Downland Living Museum shaped some of her earliest memories. Now she helps to shape someone else’s.

 

Get to know Becky! Watch his full video interview here:

 

Could You Be Our Next Volunteer?

Becky’s story is one we hear again and again: a lifelong interest in history, a love of the Museum, and a desire to be part of something meaningful. Whether your passion is agricultural heritage, building conservation, crafts, education, or simply welcoming visitors — there’s a place for you here.

If you’d like to find out more about volunteering at Weald & Downland Living Museum, check out our Volunteering Page or speak to a member of the team on your next visit. We’d love to hear from you.