Even when she received multiple visitors most days Mrs Smith often felt lonely.  We know this from letters she wrote, and things said to her very closest friends. These feelings would occur in the evenings when her last visitors had left and she spent another evening by the fire with her TV for company, or worse when she had no visitors at all that day.

Loneliness is a very common feeling, and everyone will experience it at points in their life. The elderly, single parents, people with disabilities, and those who have recently moved to new communities (possibly far away from their old homes) are particularly vulnerable to these feelings which, without support, can lead to depression or anxiety.

To help visitors understand the character and story of Mrs Smith’s life, we want to select 12 objects which represent her best. We have asked lots of people who knew her to nominate objects and dug through the collection to find those objects that reveal how Mrs Smith lived throughout the year. These will be on display in the Visitor Centre when we reopen spanning the 12 months of the year.

We need your help to select the last object for the month of May.