Cash Lifeline For Bletchley Park

Smivs writes "Bletchley Park, the home to the allied codebreakers during WWII, and a major computing heritage centre, has been given a financial lifeline, reports the BBC. The grant of £330,000 will be used to undertake urgent roof works as the rooms of the Grade II-listed mansion, replete with painted ceilings, timber panelling, and ornate plasterwork, are at risk because the roof has been patched rather than renovated so many times during the 130 years of the mansion's history. The donation follows efforts to highlight the dilapidated state of the huts and other buildings at Bletchley. Discussions are also in progress on a further three-year, £600,000 funding programme for the historic site. 'Bletchley Park played a fundamental role in the Allies winning the Second World War and is of great importance to the history of Europe,' said Dr Simon Thurley, chief executive of English Heritage."

Lame.

[macthulhu]

Seems to me that some of the guys running the big tech companies should kick in a little something... Given Bletchley's place in computing history, Gates, Jobs, et al should throw them a bone. Even in this economy, Gates could probably fund it himself without really noticing a hit in his wallet.

I can think of a few groups that should pony up.

[LWATCDR]

Hey Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Intel.
Each of you are swiming in cash and this is your history.
Why not pony up some bucks for History.
While your at it the Apollo 1 launch pad is also fading away.

How about the state of California...

[trawg]

...that just spent US$73 million dollars [sfgate.com] arguing over Proposition 8 - should there be same sex marriage in the state of California.

I'm not American, or gay, but it fucking shits me when I see this sort of money being thrown around - in the middle of this epic credit crisis, no less - over something as utterly trivial as whether or not gay people can get married, when there's actual, serious, important things all over the world that get practically no funding.

I don't know how much money came from where but the AP article I read indicates that (unsurprisingly) lots of it comes from various religious organisations, including the Mormon Church which various sources say have raised between US$8 million [advocate.com] and US$17 million [theatlantic.com] alone.

Pretty sad state of affairs, really.

Re:Lame.

[macthulhu]

One more time, to clarify... I contribute what I can in my field of expertise. I was merely suggesting that there are some luminaries in the field that would be a good match. I realize everyone is touchy about the redistribution of wealth these days, but I'm pretty far from suggesting it be taxed out of anyone. I support the idea of people giving to projects that relate to the foundation of careers that they have found massive success in, of their own free will. Charitable giving, especially to something closely related to one's own good fortune and interests and the preservation of history is a decent thing to do. That is all. Relax.

Re:There's not really that much there

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

Dude! Your idea of what the word "museum" means is skewed by the fact that you're familiar with the museums of what is possibly the #1 museum location in the world, London. Bletchley Park is a fine museum with plenty of exhibits and reconstructed wartime rooms including actual Enigma machines and teletypes, reconstructed Bombes and an amazing reconstruction of Colossus. You get to see the actual buildings in which WWII cryptography took place including the huts. You also get a guided tour full of interesting historical anecdotes. Of course it's smaller than the Imperial War Museum, the latter was created by a national government effort and is probably one of the largest museums of its type in the entire world.