22 Oct
2010
22 Oct
'10
2:52 p.m.
From: lproven at gmail.com
On 22 October 2010 21:17, Tony Duell <ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk> wrote:
Hi
I thought I'd stay out of this but have to say something here.
This is how history gets filtered and the actual history is lost.
While audience appeal may be important for a museum, sequential
history is imortant as well. It might be that that tank was used as
a prototype of a gun stabilizing system that later made the difference
of Montgomery not getting his ass blown off.
It is also inportant for museums not to rewrite history by ignoring
why things got the way they were. What you don't say is as important
as what you do.
Dwight
I do find this difficult to understand (no, not
your comments, but such a
policy).
[...]
But what i don't 'get' is why a stock
machine is somehow 'special'
becuase it was used for a particular task, when any other machine off the
same production line would have done just as well.
If I was visiting a museum, I would be much more interested to see a
working example of the sysem (prefereablly running the rogiianl software)
than to see the machine that was actually used, not operational.
I think it's fairly safe to say, then, that yours is not a typical
response. My guess would be that most people would be far more
interested in a particular artefact that had had some famous role than
in another, identical one that was never involved in anything
interesting but was in full working order.
E.g. - just as a hypothetical:
"This is Lord Montgomery's personal tank from the North African
campaign" (cool and interesting) versus "here is a perfectly working
model FYQZ37-B-142/Z type C tank that has never been to war and was
never deployed on active service".
TBH, I'd not be /particularly/ interested to see either - I'm not much
into tanks - but one that was used by someone I've heard of in a
campaign I've read about would be far more interesting than a mint one
that never did anything.