Peter Skuse
Volunteer tour guide
Tell us a bit about yourself – what do you do when you’re not volunteering?
I enjoy swimming regularly, driving country lanes throughout the UK and USA, and love hiring canal boats on British waterways.
What sort of volunteering work do you do with FoWG?
I’m a volunteer guide for the windmill, and try to help set-up or close-down when in time.
How did you get into volunteering with FoWG?
Investigating the walk I did from Clapham to Brixton Hill as a teenager, I noticed the disappearance of Prague Street and that length of Blenheim Gardens that went from the mill to Lyham Rd. Then I saw a derelict mill, where my dad was sent on errands by his mum, my grandmother, to buy flour in the 1910s.
Many years later I found the mill alive and kicking, and because of the family connection showed an interest, which has culminated in training and becoming a guide there.
What is your favourite thing about volunteering?
The great team atmosphere, and in particular the enormous grin most visitors have on their faces when entering the top floor of the mill and seeing the simplicity but might of the gearing and wheels up there!
What is the one piece of advice you’d give to someone looking to volunteer?
Try it out!
How do you feel you have benefited from volunteering with FoWG?
Re-establishing the family link that dates back to the 1890s.
Finally, tell us a surprising fact about the windmill that people may not know.
The second door on to the wooden walkway was blocked up to allow a helter-skelter slide to be fixed to the outside of the mill tower in the 1970s, though it only stayed there for a short time.
[Editor’s note: Peter may be joking about the helter skelter, but there was certainly a high-level walkway around the cap at some stage.]
