* Posts by trfh

3 publicly visible posts • joined 4 Feb 2014

Bletchley Park spat 'halts work on rare German cipher machine'

trfh

Re: Just another instance of disingenuous practices by museums.

Excellent comment.

The truth about museums is that they "say" they are in business to collect, preserve and interpret artefacts. But the bottom line is that the people who run them are in business to preserve their jobs. And generally, the unpaid trustees (most museums are charities of one sort or another) don't have the gumption or knowledge to challenge the paid staff ("the professionals").

Even in the good times (definitely not now!) museums have to fight for funds, and so they will adopt any dodgy and underhand practices they can get away with if it brings in the money. A good example would be the National Archive at Kew. Their charges for copies of documents sent in the post are eye-watering. Of course, you can go there in person, get in free, and photo the documents youself. Trouble is that they put every possible hurdle in the way of obtaining good quality copies - poor lighting, no flash allowed, no scanners allowed, documents bundled so they cannot be laid flat (and woe betide anyone who undoes his bundle!).....

trfh

Re: " one of the only"

Poor english of course.

But the point behind the bad english is that no-one who holds a very rare item likes to make statements such as "this is the only one surviving". It is of course unwise to make such claims, because proving a negative - in this case, that no other examples exist - is a practical impossibility.

Because technology is generally regarded as a "throw away" item, very few people outside those directly interested place any value on bits of our technological history. Some of it changes hands for small sums on Ebay. Much of gets skipped when its owner passes away by relatives keen to clear the house of "all the junk".

The response of the average person in the street to the claim that "this is the only one surviving" - is to say "well, the rest were clearly junk, why are you hanging on to that one?"

trfh

Re: This is confusing

Unfortunately, the two NT sites you mention are the exceptions. At Styal Mill, my understanding is that the working exhibits are in the hands of some sort of separate trust or organisation that runs and maintains them. And they were in place before the NT arrived on the scene.

At Cragside, I didn't see much actual historic technology working when I visited. I did see reproductions of the original light bulbs which was interesting and enlightening. Nothing else though - including the much trumpeted hydropower.

I've been trying to get working exhibits of WWII electronics into a NT site which was similar to Bletchley Park for its contribution to the war effort (but is barely known outside a few specialists like myself). I''ve been working towards this for the last few years, but have recently been told "we don't want anything working in our museum". You will get the same attitude in other museums - the Royal Signals Museum at Blandford for instance, which I have first hand knowledge of.

The truth is that the general run of people who run "heritage" have no understanding of, and no interest in, technology and its history. There interests are in the people who did the technology and how they lived their lives - not in the actual artefacts they invented or used.

And to be fair, the "geeksquad" who do understand it and know about it (and I am full card-carrying member), have failed to make it interesting to the ordinary person in the street. The exceptions are those small groups (for instance) who fire up old steam engines once in a while and show them to the public. It sounds like NMOC may well be an exception too but I have yet to visit it.