BUT WOULD IT WORK?
The 2007 season commenced with three bank holiday weekends that are now very similar to each other as we have split away the Two Museums element of the last one until 24 June. This is to reduce the overcrowding in some of the Museum’s facilities.
Of course, this year we had a completely new site layout to play with, including a proper bus lay-by. Would it all work?
Demand on all the Mondays was lively, as usual. The good early spring weather meant that the grass overflow car park could be used for the first two Bank Holiday Mondays, disturbing the pigeons patrolling the reseeding like police doing a fingertip search. We had booked the car park at Resolution (formerly Britannic) for the Monday at the end of May. This proved a wise decision as, not only were numbers buoyant, but the weather for both Sunday and Monday was amongst the worst we had endured for many years on an operating day so our grass overflow was unusable and drowned the operators of the EMES railway. One wonders how much better our visitor numbers would have been with good weather – although, with full sun, we can lose people to waterside attractions. On that weekend, we had unofficial waterside attractions of our own.
Talking of water attractions, mention and thanks must be given to the Droitwich ‘boat people’ who visit us each year and kindly provide an excellent display. They were not the only visitors. The usual suspects among supportive bus owners were present, joined by buses from much further afield come to check us out. We were also very pleased to see period trucks and a fire engine, suggesting something truck-based next year, perhaps.
Various ways were tried to load, unload and pose buses in our new bus terminus until we were happy we had the most suitable arrangements. Yes, the new layout works and looks very good too with proper period shelters and stop columns against the backdrop of The Power Hall. Easter visitors could see inside the new hall but vehicles and displays were still to be arranged. The May visitors saw the interior of the hall 95% complete and comments were very gratifying indeed.
Malcolm Keeley
Chapel Lane, Wythall, Worcs B47 6JX
Tel : 01564 826471 e-mail us
A registered educational charity no 507191
