What museums meant to us

I first went to the Natural History Museum when I was about five. When it was time to go home, I'm told that I lay down by the diplodocus and screamed. I've probably been about three times a year ever since, and it's just as wonderful as it was that first time. With so little of the world left in its natural state, it has an even more important role to enthral, entertain and educate each new generation so they and their families can be part of the green renaissance.
David Bellamy, botanist and TV presenter.

I've visited the Dulwich Picture Gallery many times. During a recent visit, I was told how popular the gallery had become with children from local schools. I know of a girl in my constituency who loved it so much, she took her mother there. Her mother hadn't been inside a gallery in her life. What better endorsement of a cultural institution? Keeping safe the masterpieces of another age and making them speak to people today. That is why museums are not mausoleums. Why they are centres of light, of education, of inspiration.
Tessa Jowell, Culture Secretary.

Museums used to be temples of art where adults were allowed to worship in silence. No longer. Museums now encourage all ages to enter, to create, to learn and to have fun. They play an increasingly vital part in helping children understand the world and their place within it.
Mark Taylor, director, Museums Association

I grew up in Liverpool in the 1930s and 1940s and found inspiration at the Walker. Children today are bombarded by moving electronic imagery and are in danger of becoming so quick on the uptake that they miss half the point. In museums, children can learn to slow down, to make a personal exploration of a still image through their own imagination.
Shirley Hughes, children's author. (Shirley Hughes - Alfie, Dogger And Friends at the Walker until August 25.)

Children are never too young to visit museums. I'll never forget the sight of my six-week-old twins engrossed by the amazing vision of a huge Bridget Riley painting in Tate Modern, while their four-year-old sister sat under the Louise Bourgeois spider trying to work out where the eggs came from. Three years on, she still compares spiders scurrying across our kitchen floor to that sculpture.
Anra Kennedy, education officer of 24hourmuseum.org.uk

It was the spooky Egyptian mummies in the British Museum which were the big draw when I made my first school trip to the metropolis as a small Kent lad. That trip left me with an unwavering affection for the British Museum and an insatiable fascination for ancient Egypt.
Mark Wood, chair, Resource: The Council for Museums (resource.gov.uk).

I clearly remember my first museum visit at the age of four, in 1934. My father had had a polite dispute with a colleague about the age of the earliest mummified body in the British Museum, and took me along when he went to check. What made the occasion special for me was the trouble he got into from various people afterwards. 'You took the child ... to see a body!' I had never heard anyone tick him off before. I had thought the body looked quite peaceful and nicely tanned, lying in the sand. My first museum visit had shown me it was all right to be dead.
Gill Mulley, reader and grandmother.

Museums and galleries are places we can go to learn more about ourselves and the world we live in, and young children are an extremely important audience. Exclude them, and you exclude the wider family. Include them, and you foster a love of discovery that will remain with them for the rest of their lives.
Laury Redman, Redman Design (redman-design.com), a museum design company.

Museums can be stimulating and inclusive places for all children. Visually impaired children will want to touch and feel objects; children with non-verbal communication can get as much pleasure from contemporary art installations as the most learned art critic. I hope the campaign will make all children feel welcome.
Francine Bates, chief executive, Contact a Family (cafamily.org.uk) - for families with disabled children.

My nearly three-year-old daughter Megan and I were at Tate Britain discussing issues raised by a painting - that both a beggar and a princess are equal when threatened by a violent storm. An elderly woman turned to us and said, 'Don't you think she's rather young for philosophy?' Megan replied, 'No I'm not!' She's seen countless films that cover the same ground, so why would a painting be too difficult?
Bridget McKenzie, reader.