Loss of Direction..
Hi all
I have somewhere an old RAF yearbook dating from my childhood showing the then proposed RAF museum.
It had one of those architects’ illustrations showing happy well-dressed people enjoying the museum. It also went onto describe the proposed layout that would help to illustrate the development of the RAF from its earliest origins through to modern times.
When it opened (or shortly after) my parents took me for the day and I confess I was enthralled.
The whole museum was ‘a piece’. One started off in the aircraft hall bottom left hand side and worked round in a clockwise manner.
I think the first exhibits were a Bleriot and the Caudron. The aircraft got more modern until at the end were jets etc.
Then one went upstairs to the galleries which had those wonderful scenes with those posed figures (probably revolutionary for a museum in the seventies) things like the RFC workshop and the training lecture, I think on the Lewis gun and the Rolls Royce armoured car as one came downstairs and started to work back to the entrance.
All this was interspersed with models in glass cases of which the WW1 trench scene with models suspended above kept my attention for ages and various smaller exhibits relevant to the time period.
Since that time I’ve watched the slow (in my opinion) decline of this concept until now there just seems to be a random mish-mash of types pushed in where-ever there is a space.
I’m still deeply saddened that those exhibition galleries are all gone with the exception of the VC gallery I think which now sits meaninglessly on it’s own.
Maybe the jokers that run the place should be sent a copy of my RAF yearbook article. It might give them a clue or two.
Also sadly last time I was there (December) the place was crawling with a horrible rabble—namely today’s youth who weren’t in the least bit interested in anything that I could see.
I did speak to a volunteer guide who informed me of two things, 1) The majority of the people visiting didn’t give a sh*t about the museum (his words)—they were only there because it was free and slightly more entertaining than B&Q and b) the management of the museum were idiots.
Two other things have changed since the museum opened. In those days no flash photography was the rule and the place used to have uniformed attendants.
I remember mother put her foot over one of those curbs on that first visit onto the white painted concrete and was politely but firmly advised not to by an attendant.
As he walked away my dad said, “well that’s the RAF all over that is!”
I wonder what that old boy would have said if he’d seen the state of the place in December.
Sorry about ranting but it upsets me.
All the best
Andy
PS Does anyone else remember those model scenes in cases or those dummy displays?
I remember another one showed an RAF guy evading capture in France with a glass case showing escape equipment adjacent to it.
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