THE manager of Worcester's Museum of Local Life has spent her last day at the venue a week before it goes into mothballs.

Nicole Burnett has been manager of the Friar Street museum and council social history officer for four-and-a-half years.

Six weeks ago, she decided to resign before the final decision was made to put the museum into mothballs, closing it for the foreseeable future.

"The council wanted to cut my post to part-time," said Mrs Burnett.

"I will be very sad to be going. It was my dream job.

"People really take you into their confidence to tell you their life stories and you feel privileged dealing with people's treasured possessions."

After leaving, Mrs Burnett plans to go freelance to fill the void of social history education left by the museum.

The venue will close on Monday, March 31, and the remaining four part-time staff will be redeployed to the City Art Gallery and Museum.

Because of budget cuts the museum looked set to be closed permanently, but councillors decided to defer closure to see if the money can be found to keep the venue open.

"We have all been touched by the public's response to the museum's closure and just wish that the people who made the decision for us to close could hear the comments of our visitors for themselves," said Mrs Burnett.

"I think that it will be a sad loss for Worcester and hope very much that a solution to the financial problems can be found quickly and it can be reopened.

"It's not the best museum in the world - as a professionally trained curator there are lots of things I would like to change about it," said Mrs Burnett.

"But we never got any negative comments from the public.

"They always came out absolutely delighted."

The museum's 2,400ft of filled shelf space and more than 1,000 objects, mainly from the 19th and early 20th Century, will remain in the museum once it closes. There is not enough room to house it at any other site.