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An impressive track record

Angela Kelly
27/ 8/2008

THE Museum of Science and Industry is going full steam into the future with a real enthusiast at its helm.

Steve Davies is the new director of the Castlefield attraction – and he couldn’t be happier.

The 49-year-old former career soldier, awarded the MBE for his work in Sarajevo, not only comes with the impeccable management CV that commanding 20,000 troops entails but is also a longtime enthusiast of heritage in general and railways in particular.

In fact, he admits, "this is my dream job."

Born in Darwen, some of his earliest and most treasured memories are of sitting in his grandfather’s "pen," or allotment, watching steam trains wind their way along the tracks. "I can still remember that feeling of excitement as the train disappeared from view behind houses, but you could still trace it because of the smoke until it appeared again," he says.

Divided between his love of the military and railways when it came to choosing a career, he opted for the former and joined the Army as a soldier at 16. His potential was spotted early and he was sent to Sandhurst military academy at 18, becoming a young officer with the Queen’s Lancashire Regiment.

He worked his way up the rankings and commanded the 1st Battalion of the Queen’s Lancs Regiment, involved in the aftermath of the Omagh bombing in 1998. He moved with the battalion to Canada, then served in Northern Ireland’s ‘bandit country’ of south Armagh.

As a full colonel, Steve Davies was sent to Sierra Leone which was still recovering from its civil war. There, as well as working with the populace, he was also able to indulge his special interest in steam railways and set up the Sierra Leone Railway Museum, which has now become a national attraction.

Behind that simple fact, however, lay a year of incredibly hard work and ingenuity as Steve discovered rusted and neglected engines and carriages in an area which had been taken over for refugees.

"It was a mess," he says with masterly understatement. "But, when we recruited some help and got under way, it began to take shape."

Steve actually paid the wages of the workers, bringing over Andrew Scott from York’s National Railway Museum to lend his expertise, and spending long hours restoring both the engines and premises.

Many years before, Steve had become interested in the work of the Manchester Museum of Science and Industry, and became one of its first Friends – No.14, in fact. "The museum, of course, encompasses the original Liverpool Road railway station – the oldest surviving railway station in the world – so it was a natural for me. And I had retained links with it over the years," he says.

When he saw the job of MoSI director advertised he was Chief of Staff Headquarters 2nd Division, based in Edinburgh with 250 staff and responsible for a vast area including part of the north-west.

"I didn’t leave the Army for a job," he emphasises. "I left the Army for THIS job.

"The museum is a remarkable place. It not only explains science but you can actually see how the theory is put into practice, and it bridges that gap in all sorts of ways."

MoSI is certainly a popular attraction; so far this year, around three quarters of a million people have visited it. In spite of the vast success of the Bodyworlds exhibition, Steve is quick to point out that the venue is a museum, not an exhibition centre – "and one that plans to be better than ever and an international attraction."

In spite of a funding blow when its expansion project was passed over for another, Steve is adamant that this will not hamper MoSI’s growth. "You don’t necessarily have to be bigger to be better," he says.

In the meantime, Steve is looking for a Manchester home for his wife, Ruth, and children Harry, 18, and 17-year-old Katie.

But one of his first "tasks" in his new job was one closest to his heart – to drive the museum’s 1830 replica Planet steam train. "I didn’t quite grasp how the controls worked at first, but it was soon going forward nicely," he states.

That sounds just like the museum’s strategy for the years ahead.