NOT everyone grows up in a French-style chateau surrounded by thousands of priceless works of art.

But Margaret Asquith, 76, is one of the last people alive to have lived in Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle, where her father Thomas Wake was curator from 1946 to 1958.

Making coffee for the Queen Mother, helping to restore the museum's famous silver swan and wandering the vast corridors were part of an extraordinary childhood recalled by Mrs Asquith during a recent visit.

The Wake family lived "above the shop" from 1946, when Margaret was 14.

By the time they left 12 years later, she had graduated from Durham University and enjoyed a spell as the museum's tea lady and administrator, working for just £5 a week.

Her free time was spent sunbathing on the roof with her sisters, playing tennis in the grounds and drinking coffee and soup from the kitchen.

The Wakes were one of few families to own a car in the 1940s, and the boot of Mrs Asquith's wonderfully modern Morris Eight was often in use carting precious items to and from the museum, wrapped carefully in paper.

This was a far cry from the high levels of security that we know today.

Once autumn arrived, with no electricity to light or heat the public rooms, Mr Wake welcomed the warmth of the cellars as he unpacked boxes and chests in search of treasures for display.

Here he found two of the museum's most famous exhibits, a tiny jewel-encrusted clockwork mouse, which was later stolen and then mysteriously returned to the Bowes, and tarnished parts of a life-sized mechanical silver swan which was to become a symbol of the museum.

The discovery of the silver leaves surrounding the swan started months of painstaking work for Mrs Asquith, her father and head attendant Ralph Davison.

Mr Wake returned to the cellars many times, emerging with more boxes filled with different parts of the model until eventually they found the swan itself.

Gradually, the exquisite model took shape, and Mrs Asquith watched it being placed in a showcase in the museum's entrance hall when, for the first time, she saw it in action and heard its chimes.

She said: "We didn't know what it was at first.

"My father found it in the basement and we pieced it together. I remember helping him to clean all of the leaves.

"It was astounding how Ralph, very gradually over many months, was able to piece together the various parts, and I will always remember the first sight of the little fish struggling in the swan's mouth.

"There could not be a more fitting logo for the Bowes Museum than that of the graceful lines of the silver swan."

Mrs Asquith looks back on her teenage years as some of the happiest of her life.

She said: "Me and my sisters would often sunbathe on the roof.

"I could walk around the museum with my eyes closed, I knew it so well.

"I feel now that it was an extraordinary life."

The family's discoveries were not always as valuable as the silver swan, however.

Mr Wake was forced to introduce admission charges in 1947 to keep the museum afloat and in a fit state of repair.

The move upset many of the residents of Barnard Castle, who found they had to pay to enter the building for the first time: sixpence for a child and a shilling for adults.

Mrs Asquith said: "There was an outcry in Barnard Castle, they said that the museum belonged to them."

The money paid for essential repairs until Durham County Council took responsibility for the museum nine years later.

As a patron of the museum, the Queen Mother visited on November 1, 1956, to celebrate the handover, of which Mrs Asquith has vivid memories.

She said: "We set her apart in her own boudoir and I served her coffee.

"Before she left, she thanked me personally, which I thought was very sweet of her."

Thomas Wake is today credited with resurrecting the museum from a post-war slump.

FAMILIAR ROOMS: Mrs Asquith is shown round the museum by exhibitions manager Vivien Reid Among other assurances for its future, he set up the Friends of Bowes trust, a charitable organisation to keep the museum wellfunded and maintained. The trust now has more than 2,000 members.

Elizabeth Conran, a former curator of the Bowes Museum, spoke to the D&S Times of Mr Wake's achievements when he died in 1990.

She said: "When one looks at Thomas Wake's activities, one is amazed at his energy and enthusiasm, his productiveness and above all his initiative, foresight, integrity and loyalty.

"Under his leadership the museum survived, and flourishes. The museum and the public owe him an enormous debt."

Mrs Asquith remembers her father as a committed scholar whose work at Bowes was a labour of love.

She thinks he would have been pleased to see the recent developments at Bowes, which include interactive activities and community education projects, thanks to a £3.3m Heritage Lottery grant.

She said: "I can see my father looking down and I think he would have been tremendously thrilled with the museum today."