Thread: Museums
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Old 21st May 2019, 7:29 am   #74
trh01uk
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Location: Ross-on-Wye, Herefordshire, UK.
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Default Re: Museums

Quote:
Originally Posted by Radio Wrangler View Post
The people there aren't certain of the relationship between the two co-sited museums!

The National Museum of Computing is quite separate from Bletchley Park and on entering you have to remember to pay separately for admission to each.

There may well be reasons etc etc, but it looks silly to the average visitor.

There is also the Radio Society of Great Britain's national radio centre there on the site as well. I think that's free. They just want visitors in the hope of converting them to amateur radio,

David
I believe the underlying reason for the split was a fundamental difference of approach by two camps within the BP organisation. One lot wanted to truly preserve history, with genuine artefacts of the time, fully working and so on - that lot have become the National Museum of Computing.

The other lot wanted to get as many feet in the door as possible, with simple displays, lots of video and similar eye-catching effects, and majoring on the social history rather than the technical history. That's the glossy bit of the site most people think of as "Bletchley Park".

Then you add in the usual shouting, and falling out between the leaders of these two camps, and you arrive where we are today. Two groups on the same site staring at each other across an unbridgeable divide.

Which one is right? Neither in my book. They reach entirely different audiences - the "slightly interested" who just want to be entertained, and the "geeks" (like most of us no doubt) who can appreciate the significant achievement in rebuilding something like Colossus. Thankfully most museums manage to pursue both approaches at the same time and offer something to everyone.

Richard
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