Volunteers slam plans to turn Bletchley Park into 'geeky Disneyland'

LALALALA! We're not listening because we are right and you are wrong!

Sounds like a typical British bureaucrat. Me right, you wrong,... me alpha, you butt kisser. How do these people get these jobs when they quite obviously don't have a clue? Oh yeah, it's given them as a reward for being a good boy and kissing the right butts for many years. Ability???? Why would that have any bearing on the matter? I'll have you know I've had dinner with Lord MuckettyMuck and ,my daughters horse is stabled at the same stable as the Queens 3rd butlers sons cleaner.

Nest steps

Let's see, based on past performance of national assets, the trick goes:-

- Get £8million in funding

- Makes claims of "world class" something or other

- Sell off family silver to $PARTY_DONOR

- Rinse and repeat

You know he's on the way...

"The Trust have been trying to recruit actors to film chunks for their new interactive displays, with little regard for accuracy"

If only there was an actor who has sketchy (at best) knowledge of all things technical but everybody trusts because he's so lovely........

Someone call Fry!!

Money, as always, is the problem

They desperately needed money, then the lottery cash arrived - and with it came a whole new bunch of people with ideas on how to spend it.

Remember the early lottery ads? "It could be you!" the disembodied voice proclaimed, as a big finger came out of the sky and pointed at random people on the street. I don't really think sacking elderly volunteers was what they had in mind.

Stop me if I'm wrong

But actors need know nothing about the subject they are being filmed on (and being as it's film they need not worry about being asked questions). All they do is read their lines. It's the WRITERS that need to know their subject.

Why not ....

film the existing volunteers giving their current presentation rather than actors ?

They already know all the likely questions so can cover those, have the enthusiasm for the subject etc

Unfortunately they will need to be replaced at some time ( due to the march of time..) - rather their presentation ( which I've experienced ) than some bloddy actor or worse Mr Stephen (Gary Kildall who ?) Fry

This is entirely predictable. For some years now any (BBC, anyway) history documentary has been a shitty docu-drama, like they're specifically catering for the audience that only watch implausible action movies or Disney CGI animations, and never watch anything made back in the days of monochrome. One charitably imagines those who decided to go this route thinking it is the only one likely to impart knowledge to the modern audience; except that it approaches knowledge the same way Hollywood does; the 'story' is more important than accuracy. My impression has been that History as entertainment morphs into entertainment as History at the speed of light.

World class attraction

That phrase immediately sets of alarms. If you have a world class historical site, WHY do so many idiots feel the need to foist their vision of "a world-class attraction" on it. Sure, you can add meaningful entertainment to historical sites without spoiling it (I remember a castle in France which had installed a series of games in the courtyard, all either old, or meaningfully linked to the history of the place (like a simple game with toy crossbows, or an old variant of skittles). Really good sites allow at least a degree of exploration, allowing you to make up your own mind, and don't force one particular vision and one particular style down a visitor's throat. Why should Bletchley Park have problems with the different approach and attitude of the museum.

Someones ego needs deflation

Building a reputation

There's no Kudos or career development in leaving things alone.

No one ever got promoted for not fixing something that wasn't broke.

But if you want glory, an OBE and/or a well paid job in a shiny big national museum you need to do a job of work on something smaller first........

Send them an email

I have just sent them an email to protest about these changes, using their webform on

http://www.bletchleypark.org.uk/content/contact.rhtm

If lots of us do the same, maybe they will get the point.

I think the actors were for filming segments of footage for use during the tour, not presenting the tours themselves.

I did the old tour with two 9-yearolds and I can say they got very bored unfortunately. Definitely not suitable for the younger consumer. I enjoyed it but I did feel it was a little slow in places. There was an element of is/is not colossus viewable today which I found a bit confusing. In the end we saw it.

Changes definitely welcome, but being sensible about it is also welcome.

A message from the target of these 'improvements'

My daughter listened to a family discussion of this news; she's currently in the first year of secondary school and visited BP and TNMOC last year. She was absolutely outraged, she thought both sites were fascinating just as they were. She assertively asked me to post here pointing out that these changes are to increase the appeal to people her age, and it sounds like the opposite to her.

She wants to write a letter making that point - who's best to send it to ? I'm thinking the Chairman of the BP trustees, c/o the BP main address ?

You forgot to mentioned they are sealign off areas to stop people seeing it even though its sod all to do with them.

I did what a previous posted suggested, and put this on BPs comments page at

http://www.bletchleypark.org.uk/content/contact.rhtm

Copy it to your heart's content, but send it to them!

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What do you people think you're doing?

Colossus, Tunny etc. were an integral part of what happened at Bletchley Park. "Integral" means that those things that did happen, could not have happened without them.

Therefore it is beyond my understanding how these items are considered by the Trustees of Bletchley Park as non-central to the whole story of the place.

I note that you continue to receive substantial rent from TNMOC, yet you consider that Colossus and Tunny are no longer worthy of being part of your guided tours. (I count myself lucky, therefore, to have taken the tour some time ago, while they were still part of it).

Also note that TNMOC say that the inclusion of these items in the tour formed an important part of your successful Lottery funding bid. It looks very dishonest indeed to now exclude them.

Please reconsider this matter. How can you possibly give a full understanding of the technological and intellectual brilliance which was so much a part of Bletchley Park's wartime success, when you don't take paying visitors to see the concrete results of that brilliance?

Regards, etc.

Old hands' tales

I've visited the Landschaftspark in Dusseldorf twice. It's a decomissioned steel plant, with its blast furnaces and such made accessible to the public (not all of it; its gasometer is now a diving tank and the generator hall is an auditorium, for instance). Entrance is free, day and night, but you can arrange for a tour guide, most of whom are guys who have worked there, at the coal face so to speak. Having one of them explain what they did, how they did it and what it was like, operating the drill to drain a load of molten iron from the furnace, then have it flow down a channel in the floor just meters away from you.

That's something no one else can convey.