( CNN) - - As museum curator for the world' s oldest and arguably most prestigious major tennis tournament, Honor Godfrey lives Wimbledon' s rich history every day. Indeed, the 61- year- old helps bring the past back to life in the museum' s interactive tour and collection, which this year highlights the 125th time the grass- court event has been staged. & quot; I love the collecting aspects of the museum and I find the championships really invigorating, & quot; she says. & quot; We try to capture anything which is new or very, very different. Every championships is different and every championships is a challenge. & quot; The items on display include some of the first lawn tennis sets, an unwanted tournament poster from 1893 found in someone' s house, kitsch tennis- related ornaments and parts of the original men' s dressing room.

Fashion from down the ages lights up the collection, from unbelievably impractical early women' s outfits to Ted Tinling' s classic designs and the garments worn by recent champions such as Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer, Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova. & quot; We collect examples of the fashions that are worn every year along with other things, & quot; Godfrey says. & quot; We collect from the queue, we collect from the players, from spectators. & quot; The renowned and lengthy Wimbledon ticket queue, which has been a feature of the tournament for the past century, is the focus of this year' s special display. It gathers anecdotes from spectators who have often stayed up all night in their bid to gain coveted entrance to Centre Court, and also provides evidence - - from the women' s suffrage era, when activists targeted high- profile events - - that sports fans have had their bags searched for many decades. Another highlight is the display commemorating the longest match in tennis history, the 11- hour epic between American John Isner and France' s Nicolas Mahut at Wimbledon last year, spread out across three days. & quot; Mahut came to visit the museum and he took photographs of this showcase, & quot; Godfrey says. & quot; He was carrying his racket and John Isner' s racket, and he was sending the photographs through to John Isner in the States going, ' Where am I? ' & quot; The All- England Club, which hosts Wimbledon, is the home of tennis as we know it. Prior to the club' s introduction of the lawn game in 1875, it had largely been an indoor sport. The advent of the outdoor game was largely due to one man, Victorian entrepreneur Major Walter Wingfield. & quot; He popularized this game enormously.

He produced a boxed set which included a net, poles, rackets, balls for playing the game - - and most importantly you had his rules, & quot; Godfrey says. & quot; He was absolutely terrific at marketing and he sent his game all over the world. He had very good connections with the clergy, the law profession, and the aristocracy and he sent thousands of sets out in the first year or so, in 1874. & quot; The All- England Club started out as a croquet organization, and the first tennis championships there in 1877 helped raise funds to repair the broken pony roller that kept the grass flat at the original Worple Road site in south- west London. & quot; It was open to allcomers but it was a gentleman' s championship, & quot; Godfrey says. & quot; Everybody who entered the championship paid a guinea ( worth about $ 80 now) entrance fee, and the spectators who came to watch the final paid a shilling each ( about $ 4) and they saw Spencer Gore beat William Marshall in the final. & quot; Gore was a cricket fan who believed that outdoor tennis would never catch on.

He lost in the final the following year, but by the time of his death in 1906 tennis had well and truly captured the public' s imagination.

The museum' s 1893 poster shows that women' s and doubles competitions had been added to the Wimbledon schedule, which that year began at 4. 30 every afternoon and went from July 10- 17, closing curiously on a Monday. & quot; There weren' t covers on the courts in those days and they didn' t know what the weather was going to be like, & quot; Godfrey explains. & quot; The great thing about this poster is that it was found scrunched up behind a mirror and somebody sent it into the museum and said, ' Would you like to have it? If you don' t need it, just burn it. ' & quot; In 1922, unable to cope with demand for tickets, the club moved from Worple Road to its existing site in Church Road, a winding walk up and down tree- lined hilly streets from the local train station which may test first- time visitors.

There is a shuttle bus during the championships, which is an easier option. The show court at Worple Road was in the middle of a rectangle of surrounding ones, and its title stuck following the move despite the different layout at the new venue, which took just 10 months to complete. & quot; When we came here Centre Court was still called Centre Court for historical reasons, even though it was right at the north of the site, & quot; Godfrey says. That era of the tournament introduced flamboyant players such as Suzanne Lenglen, a six- time Wimbledon champion who revolutionized what women could wear, and compatriot Jean Borotra - - a two- time winner who was one of France' s & quot; Four Musketeers& quot; of men' s tennis. The museum evokes their grace and style with Art Deco pieces by designers such as Karl Hagenauer and Ferdinand Priess along with film footage of the period - - it' s Godfrey' s favorite exhibit. But that' s closely followed by the fashion showcases that dominate the second half of the museum tour. & quot; When women first started playing lawn tennis they would dress in their best garden party clothes.

You would have corsets and layers of petty coats on underneath - - it would be very hard to play, & quot; Godfrey says. & quot; In fact, somebody said what women were wearing was tight where it should be loose, and loose where it should be tight. & quot; Major Wingfield decided to weigh the clothes worn by his lady opponent in a game and he found that they were 4.

9 kg in weight - - that' s about five large bags of sugar - - as opposed to his clothes, which were about 2. 4 kg. & quot; Tinling was a former tennis player who became Lenglen' s personal umpire before earning renown as a clothes designer. He dressed Wimbledon women' s champions in the 1950s, ' 60s and ' 70s, while the legendary Billie Jean King ensured his legacy endured into a fourth decade when she sported one of his creations in the 1984 mixed doubles final. & quot; What was fantastic about the way he worked was he looked at the whole personality of the player, and he dressed the player to be happy in his creations, & quot; Godfrey says. The tour also features a holographic John Mc.

Enroe, who recalls his first visit to the hallowed men' s locker room as & quot; an 18- year- old punk kid from Queen' s New York who had somehow made it to the semifinals at Wimbledon. & quot; & quot; If you made it in here, you knew you were someone. This is where the contest really began. This is where the adrenalin really started to pump, & quot; the American, who won three Wimbledon titles, intones in his nasal drawl. The tour ends with a sight that any tennis player dreams of - - the Wimbledon winners' trophies. But one of Godfrey' s most cherished items is a little more obscure, harking back to the tennis boom days when memorabilia was found in all shapes and unlikely forms. & quot; When you' re collecting I think it' s absolutely amazing because you don' t know what the boundaries could ever be, & quot; she says. & quot; One of my favorites is a tiny little zip fastener, and running up and down the sides of the zip are tiny gold rackets.

I just think, ' Who on earth made this? ' I would never have thought anyone would have made anything like that. & quot;

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Tokyo ( CNN) - - Beneath the cherry blossoms of Shiba Park, more than 2, 000 people lined up for a Sunday afternoon march calling for Japan' s nuclear power stations to be shut down. A week before, a similar protest - - though in a chilly drizzle, not on a warm, sunny day - - drew about 250. And a month of frustration, desperation and anger boiled over at Tokyo Electric Power Company' s headquarters Friday as officials from towns around the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant demanded to know when the crisis that has besieged their farming communities would end. & quot; The nuclear plant situation needs to be resolved as soon as possible. If not, we farmers will die, & quot; one of the officials, Iwao Suzuki, told the utility' s executives. But the response from Naomi Hirose, the managing director of Japan' s largest utility, offered little encouragement to the delegation or the rest of the world. & quot; There is a need to draw an end to the current situation as soon as possible, & quot; Hirose said, adding, & quot; We totally agree to this and are taking the utmost endeavors to contain the radiation. & quot; Since the March 11 earthquake that ravaged northern Japan, workers at Fukushima Daiichi have been struggling to cool down three overheated reactors and keep pools of spent but still potent nuclear fuel from spreading further radioactive contamination across northern Japan.

A month into the crisis, the utility acknowledges, there is no end in sight. The problems are so far & quot; beyond the design capacity& quot; of the plant that the Japanese are working in uncharted territory, said Michael Friedlander, a former senior operator at U. S. nuclear power plants. & quot; No nuclear power plant has ever considered the inability to get on long- term core cooling for more than a week, much less three weeks, & quot; Friedlander said. Some Japanese experts now say the effort is in danger of failing unless Japan seeks more help from international experts to bring it to an end. Tetsunari Iida, an engineer- turned- industry critic, said the situation is & quot; beyond the reach& quot; of Japan' s closely knit nuclear establishment. & quot; A real exit strategy has to start with an inspection by the world' s top experts on nuclear accidents, & quot; Iida told reporters at Japan' s national press club last week.

Engineers and workers so far have managed to stave off a complete meltdown in Fukushima Daiichi' s reactors 1- 3 and in the spent fuel pool of unit 4. But experts say the overheated fuel rods are likely to have suffered extensive damage, and there is a complication for seemingly every advance.

Much of the past week was dominated by the attempt to stop water laced with massive amounts of radioactive particles from pouring into the Pacific Ocean - - water that comes out of the reactors & quot; screaming with radioactivity, & quot; Friedlander said.

Tokyo Electric is now grappling with where to put the stuff, even dumping thousands of tons of less- radioactive water into the Pacific to make room for it in a reservoir for low- level waste. In a normally functioning plant, coolant water is circulated out of the reactors and chilled.

Then it' s pumped back in to carry more heat away from the plant' s fuel rods, which continue producing energy long after the chain reaction at the heart of the units has been stopped. & quot; You have to get the recirculation system up and functioning so they can cool that water in the normal way, & quot; said Gary Was, a nuclear engineering professor at the University of Michigan and a CNN consultant.

Normal cooling systems don' t require the massive amounts of water - - around 7 metric tons ( 1, 850 gallons) per hour - - now being poured into the reactors. & quot; That' s a big problem, & quot; Was said. Tokyo Electric officials told CNN they can' t say when they' ll be able to restore those normal cooling.

The first step is to get highly radioactive water out of the flooded basements of the units' turbine plants, then figure out how badly the equipment inside has been damaged. For the first two weeks of the crisis, engineers pumped seawater into the reactors. But the resulting buildup of salt inside has made it harder for coolant to circulate, U. S. nuclear safety officials advised in March. In addition, Was said, the fuel rods are likely in a state of & quot; partial melt, & quot; the extent of which will be difficult to determine.

After 1979' s Three Mile Island accident in Pennsylvania, it took more than two years before operators were able to get a camera into the reactor to examine its condition, he said.

Satoshi Sato, a Japanese nuclear industry consultant, called the current line of attack a & quot; waste of effort. & quot; Plant instruments are likely damaged and unreliable because of the intense heat that was generated, and pumping more water into the reactors is only making the contamination problem worse, he said. & quot; There is no happy end with their approach, & quot; Sato told CNN. & quot; They must change the approach. That' s something I' m sure of 100 percent. & quot; After the 1986 Chernobyl accident, the world' s worst to date, the Soviet Union encased the plant' s damaged reactor in a massive concrete sarcophagus. Iida said Fukushima Daiichi' s reactors remain too hot to pour concrete, but he suggested pouring a slurry of minerals and sand over them to carry away heat before encasing them.

And Was said the reactors have to be cooled in order to let the molten fuel harden again: & quot; Only when it solidifies are you sure you can contain it. & quot; He said Tokyo Electric should be in the lead - - & quot; It' s their plant& quot; - - but he added, & quot; There' s a lot of different areas in which they could benefit from international help. & quot; Japan' s government is consulting with experts from the U. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the French nuclear fuel company Areva, said Hidehiko Nishiyama, deputy director- general of Japan' s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency and the agency' s chief spokesman. Navy barges have been carrying fresh water to Fukushima Daiichi, and Tokyo' s foreign ministry has asked Russia about using a Japanese- built ship outfitted as a floating decontamination plant. & quot; We already have quite a bit of support from outside countries and organizations, & quot; Nishiyama said. But he added, & quot; I think the most urgent issue now is support in whatever form possible with regard to how we can dispose of the cooling water and be able to build a sustainable cooling system. & quot; General Electric which designed the reactors, and Hitachi, which built most of the plant, are also advising the government and Tokyo Electric. GE chief Jeffrey Immelt flew to Japan to consult with Japanese officials and executives last week, and Tokyo has asked Russian officials about using a Japanese- built ship outfitted as a floating decontamination plant.

But for now, Japan has & quot; no choice& quot; but to continue pouring water into the reactors, Friedlander said. & quot; I have no doubt that the men and women working at the power plant are indeed going to exert every human effort to make sure that they resolve this, & quot; he said. & quot; What I don' t know and what I can' t tell and the big question mark for me is, will it be done sooner than later? & quot; And again, my hope is, is that it' ll be done sooner.

But in order for it to be done sooner, TEPCO' s going to have to step up and ask for more help from the international community. & quot; Ailing Chang and CNN' s Brian Walker contributed to this report.