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Picarvie, A
Museum with a soul
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It is because things and tools leave their
mark on the life of a period and an area that Paul Longuein,
who loves his region and his village, took on the beautiful
task of transmitting their uses and history. For over 30
years, this contractor born at
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Tell us about your collection, what is
special about it?
PL : Between 25 and 30 trades are
represented, from the blacksmith to the chair bottomer. They
are all manual trades and there are 7,000 tools! You will also
find life in a village during the last century: the
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school, the public house, the farm as I
knew it. Many visitors re-live their past and share it with
their children and grand-children...
Why did you wish to sell your Museum to the
organisation headed by Jérôme Bignon?
PL : I did not want the museum to close ...
After several failed attempts at selling, it was my wish to
continue and not see the dispersal of the collection. I still
live over the Museum and come round regularly to participate in
visits and pass on anecdotes to the young guides; It gives me
great satisfaction.
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The Chambre Régionale des Comptes of
Picardy (Regional Court of Accounts) has recently sent the SMACOPI its
observations on the management of the Syndicat Mixte under its control
during the period 1994-2001.
Some anomalies were found by the financial
jurisdiction, but overall, the result is positive for the SMACOPI,
taking into account the magnitude of the tasks in hand and the very
rapid growth in its activities over the period monitored. I take this
opportunity to repeat that I am proud to be President since 1998 of
this thirty-year-old organisation, which in the Somme Estuary embodies
the policies of the General Council in matters of nature environment
management and development of tourist economy. Its innovating activity
owes much to the quality of the members of its team, in whom I have
full confidence.
In addition to the information for the public at
large given by the press, I think that everyone may wish to be informed
personally of the contents of this report. It can be found on the
website www.baiedesomme.org/rapport2005.pdf and if you wish, a paper copy will be sent to you on
request.
Please do not hesitate to send in your
comments regarding the report; we will give them our full
consideration.
It goes without saying that we obviously
wish to progress, so this report gives us the opportunity to share our
policies with everyone.
Selected to become “Grand Site de
France”, member of the World’s Most Beautiful Estuaries
Club, the Somme Bay has been handed a much envied original tool to
ensure its future: we must now continue to develop it with high
expectations and determination!
Saigneville, has assembled a large collection of
tools. He then chose Saint-Valery-sur-Somme to create the Musée
Picarvie which he called an “ecomuseum” (living museum)...
thereby affirming his desire to make local tradition live on. We asked
him to tell us the history of the site and of his collections.I
When did the Museum first open?
PAUL LONGUEIN : On 15th April 1990, a fortnight
after I retired as a contractor! It was after acquiring some
“jumble” that this hobby started more than 30 years ago: a
roadman’s stone hammer was the first tool I found in a jumble
sale... I had caught the bug, because from a collector of tools, I
became a collector of “trades”... It was a good time as
craftsmen were entering the mechanised era. I used to visit them, they
would give me their tools and explain their uses and recount
anecdotes... Little by little, the idea of creating a museum with all
this started to grow.
Why Saint-Valery-sur-Somme?
PL : It is a place that my wife and I love and
where we wish to settle... This used to be an agricultural building. We
acquired it and completely refurbished and converted it to create this
museum and our home.
