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5th April 2011 - by Patricia Jones
  
A Day Out In Yorkshire At Bradford's National Media Museum
  
I don't get to see my 5 and 7 year old grandkids often, but when I do see them we like to do something special as a family. At that age they can get bored easily and spoil it for everybody else when they get cranky and impatient to leave, so we need to choose places that can hold their interest as well as being enjoyable. In the winter our options are fewer so when my son in law suggested the National Media Museum at Bradford we were all keen to check it out.

It took a while to find a parking space in the centre of Bradford even though it was a Sunday, but we were able to park close enough to the media museum in the end. We were astonished to find that there was no entry fee, just a donations welcome sign. I can't remember the last time that I went in anywhere that offers any form of free entertainment.

We were greeted at the door by a pleasant young man with leaflets and advice as to which exhibits were most likely to entertain the youngsters. We ignored his advice and checked out most of the 7 floor building, starting at the Kodak gallery on the lower ground floor. The kids were quite taken with the strange boxy objects that we used to take photographs with, they are so used to having their photos taken with mobile phones nowadays.

On the first floor is a temporary exhibition and when we went there in the first gallery was photographs in the 'From Back Home' display by leading Swedish photographers Anders Petersen and JH Engstrom. To be honest I wasn't very impressed. Most of them didn't look much different to the many photos my friends and I have taken on boozy nights out and fun holidays.

On the next floor in gallery 2 there was a selection of prints from Fay Godwin, one of Gritain's greatest landscape photographers. I found these more interesting but as they were in black and white I didn't appreciate them as much as I might have done in colour - what do I know though! Anyway what was most important was that the kids didn't winge once while we were looking at the photos in either gallery.

The third floor houses Experience TV, TV Heaven and BBC Studio. There was a large collection of televisions dating back to when they were first invented. I was surprised at how tiny some of the early 60s models were, somehow I had thought mini TVs to be a later invention.

One of the most amusing parts of our day was in the BBC Studio. You can sit at a newsdesk and read a news story out. It's recorded and you get to watch yourself being a newsreader. My normally shy granddaughter couldn't wait to have a go, but as the prompter was too quick for her to read she made it up as she went along.

In TV Heaven you can watch TV and access their archives of more than 1,000 programmes from the last 60 years. The programmes range from comedy classics to documentaries and you can watch them in a 5 person booth or in the 39 seat viewing room.

The magic factory on the 4th floor kept us entertained for quite a while. There were over 30 activities for us to try involving light and colour and to the grandkids they really were magic. My grandson thought the size changing mirrors hilarious, but the funniest display was found by my granddaughter. She put her hand into a hole and her hand looked to be coming out of a mirror above. She tried to grab that hand with her other hand and couldn't understand why she couldn't.

On the fifth floor we found the animation gallery which explores the history of animation and shows how animated films are made. There are models of different characters including Bob the Builder and the Wombles. We got to have a sit down there for a while as my happy grandkids took advantage of the free resources to make some collages.

On one of the floors my grandson had a go at filming 2 other children in a period setting whilst getting instructions from the camera. He was absolutely rapt in what he was doing and was loathe to come away from the exhibit.

At the end of 5 hours we descended to the ground floor to the indoor picnic area to eat our sandwiches. We bought drinks from the cafe which seemed to be reasonably priced. Next to the picnic area is a games lounge where you can see gaming consoles from 1952 to the present day. You can also experience gaming machines and games from the 1980s but at the original prices. It was fun introducing the kids to games like Space Invaders, Pacman, Frogger and Donkey Kong and we are looking forward to going back again.

The National Media Museum is a great place to visit with something for everybody. We particularly liked the exhibitions where we could take part and I'm sure that we all benefited from the experience. We will be going again but next time maybe we will check out one of the 3 cinemas, one of which is an IMAX. I still can't believe that it cost nothing for entry, an unbelievable bargain!

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