Heavy metal music and Beatrix Potter stories are among a mixed bag of treats on offer at a city centre museum while forced to close to visitors.
Discovery Museum, a Newcastle favourite with families who would normally make a bee-line there at this time of year, is remaining just as busy during lockdown to ensure that as many people as possible can continue to enjoy what it has to offer.
As it shifts its full focus online, it is out to cater for all ages and tastes and one treat for heavy metal fans is a six-part audio documentary narrated by local hard rock DJ Alan Robson.
Heavier! Faster! Louder! The Story of Tyneside Heavy Metal has been made by Sarah Younas, digital producer at Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums, and music writer John Tucker and it features interviews with local bands including Venom, Raven and Tygers of Pan Tang who are said to have helped pave the way for the likes of Metallica and Slayer.
Hear all six episodes here.
For younger ones, a rather more sedate time can be had by checking out a storytime video on Discovey Museum's Facebook page where a member of its learning team reads Beatrix Potter's classic The Tale of Benjamin Bunny, accompanied by her two pet rabbits.
Discovery Museum, which in 2018 hosted the temporary return of The Rocket, captures the story of Newcastle and how it has helped to shape our world in its exhibits of personal stories, local and maritime history and life-changing inventions.
Its centrepiece is the Turbinia, the exhibit of the first ship to be powered by steam turbines which greets visitors as they arrive in its entrance hall.
But families can still catch sight of the Turbinia in a video on the TWAM YouTube channel which shows it being transported to the museum in 1994 from its former home in Exhibition Park, as crowds gathered to watch. See here.
And on Twitter the museum is sharing images of select behind-the-scenes exhibits which families cannot currently see first-hand, such as a Rakhri bracelet which in Sikh culture is given by women to male relatives; a 1960s hat and, from its archives, Victorian mugshot photo albums of North East criminals.
And its efforts to engage with young visitors include joining TWAM's call for them to send in rainbow pictures and its recent Easter Challenge competition whose winning entries are now on show on its Facebook page where there are also 'how-to' videos on subjects such as how to make a camera obscura from household objects.
During the lockdown, some Discovery staff have been redeployed to support Newcastle West End Foodbank but the museum is currently in need of help itself and is asking for donations to help it through difficult times. See here.
