Hmmmmmmmmmmmm…Alexis, I do understand your sentiments and as an enthusiast I kind of agree…however, the Museum does have to get “bums through the door” (as opposed to “bums on seats” if you get my drift :)) It is felt that by including the Land Warfare Hall and the various boats and things, the Museum is appealing to a wider audience…we do actually have people who only come to Duxford to visit the Land Warfare Hall (like Willow, I’m not overly keen on it, but I do think it is well done) and there are even people who are interested in our naval stuff (yes, ok these folks could go to the Army Museum or Chatham etc) Due to it’s location, Duxford is the sort of Museum you make the special effort to go to, as opposed to IWM Lambeth Road, where people who are already in London might decide to “pop in” to during the afternoon before dinner and a show (hope I’m making sense here!) Therefore Duxford needs to appeal to a broad spectrum of potential visitors – yes Duxford will always have it’s core of enthusiasts who visit Duxford on a regular basis, but in order to survive, we have to get as many visitors through the door as possible, even if this means sticking a few tanks and boats on display.
Now with regards to dhfan’s post regarding the Wilson government and the TSR.2…a couple of years ago, as a Politics undergraduate I had to write a 6,000 word dissertation on any aspect/event of British post-war Politics…well after six years of studying Politics I had well and truly had enough and decided that if I could wangle it so that I could write 6,000 words about aircraft AND get a First for it, I would…after scratching my head for a bit I came up with the idea of investigating exactly why the TSR.2 had been cancelled…now I had seen Duxford’s TSR.2 many a time, standing majestically in Hanger 1, but knew little about here…fortunately my tutor who clearly jumped at the thought of having something other than yet another load of dreary drivel about the Iron Lady, thought it was an excellent idea.
Prior to this, I had always thought that Wilson and his cronies were to blame for the TSR.2 being cancelled, but it turned out to be far more complicated than that. The previous Conservative Government appeared to do everything in their power to thwart the project (I’m sure if I had ever meant the infamous Duncan Sandys I would have smacked him one fair and square!) By the time Wilson came to power, the project was already in serious trouble…
Now in case anyone is interested (and you haven’t all already fallen asleep at your computers ;)) I am trying to attach my dissertation to this post…this is the copy I have on the computer at work, I have the original copy on the computer at home complete with colours pics…please remember it is only the work of an undergraduate, so please excuse grammar etc
Ashley
Edit:
Aaaaaaaargh! Can someone tell me how to attach a word document here – rather than post all 20 pages here, I want to put a link to it so anyone who’s interested can have a look…grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!
Sign In
