A different Bletchley Park story

In two previous blogs I have agonised about what was happening at a museum near to where I live without actually saying which one I was talking about. This was for two reasons. Firstly I wanted to expose and criticise the management of the place without hurting the visitor relationship with the museums subject, and secondly we had been told not to talk to the outside world about this, so I felt constrained. Me being me, I tried to dance around those obstacles to straight talking and just got myself in a wordy maze of reasoning. Time, distance and the continuing damage being done to the place by misguided management perceptions and decisions, has made such sensitivities seem meaningless as well as the growing body of rage has become more publicly obvious. 

The museum is Bletchley Park, the wartime code-breaking centre and, by dint of people like Alan Turing and so many other independently gifted people, also seen as the focus of the early development of the computer.

The restoration of some more of the old iconic buildings, as well as development of new facilities there is now well under way, but the attack on, and resultant damage, to the reputation and value of the saving and establishment of the museum in its early years also continues. 

This current management inspired crisis is such a sad and unnecessary story and so at odds with the fascination, pleasure and enjoyment that I have seen so many people get out of visiting the place. All, especially the visitors, will make up their own minds about the exhibition, stories told, and the fascination of the place. All of us who have a more direct and lasting relationship with the place will be hoping for a good future for it, we just wish that it could be done with more understanding for the totality of the story, the side history of those who saved it and built it up to today's recognition, and the need to entertain as well as inform.

For another view of this you may like to look at another blog on the subject that, more elegantly and directly, identifies the concerns many of us have. It can be found at http://pedalling-backwards.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/bletchley-parks-unsocial-era.html