What price history?
Bletchley Park, the home of the World War II code breakers, needs in excess of a million pounds to fix its roof and decaying wooden huts. Should we, as a nation, be spending money to preserve this historic site?
Bletchley Park, on the outskirts of Milton Keynes, is the now famous home of the code breakers of WW2 who cracked the German Enigma codes and undoubtedly changed the course of the war. It was at Bletchley that Alan Turing conceived and built the automated decoding machine, an important precursor to the computer. These days the site is a museum, but the wooden huts are in a poor state of repair, and the victorian mansion needs a million pounds worth of repairs to its roof. In a letter to The Times recently, around a hundred scientists and academics called on the government to make Bletchley Park into a national museum of computing.
Having recently visited Bletchley Park, I have to say that even though I am interested in the history of computing and the science of cryptography, I felt the exhibits were disappointing. Computers are dull enough at the best of times, but if the lights don't flash and the cogs don't click then they are just metal boxes. I sensed there was more interest amongst visitors in the recreation of the war time post office and canteen, the model railway hut, and a shed containing wartime cars and trivia than there was in the decoding engines.
The letter to The Times said "As a nation we cannot allow this crucial and unique piece of both British and world heritage to be neglected in this way. The future of the site, buildings, resources and equipment at Bletchley Park must be preserved for future generations."
But what are we trying to preserve? Wooden huts, a museum of Dad's Army memorabilia, or the sense of adventure that went into the early days of computing? If it was to become a National Museum of Computing, (at an estimated cost of around seven million pounds) then I'd hope it would somehow address the issue of telling a good story to visitors, letting future generations experience these old computers, and not just lock them up in glass cases for ever more.
15th August 2008
This article comes from the SKILLZONE email newsletter, published monthly since January 2008, and covering topics related to technology and the internet. All articles and artwork in the SKILLZONE newsletter are orignal content.