Posted by PeterH on November 16, 2006 at 09:58:41 from 86.130.136.78 user Peter_H.
In Reply to: Re: Windermere Steamboat Museum (was: The Lakeland Pedlar) posted by Jock on November 16, 2006 at 00:53:20:
I am amazed at the paucity of information posted on this matter [Windermere Steamboats & Museum] on Tarboard.
Perhaps, dear Jock, all the WSM experts are exercising their divine right to 'lurk'. . . .
But I'll tell what little I know. With regard to the absence of information, you have to bear in mind that the Museum is privately owned. The owner died a while ago, and the Museum and boats were offered to the Inland Revenue in lieu of inheritance tax (death duties). The Revenue said they would accept this offer, but only if the Museum was registered. The Museum is not registered.
The Museum cannot carry on 'trading' because it has run out of money. As you will know, the maintenance costs of elderly boats kept in the water is huge. Funds have now been obtained for urgent conservation, as I mentioned in a previous post, and the boats will soon be lifted out for this purpose, and, I gather, they will for the time being be kept under cover somewhere on the museum site.
That is as far as I can go. The absence of info as to the long-term future of the collection is no doubt due to the fact that negotiations are proceeding and various ideas are being floated. The Inland Revenue are still involved. The Museum site may have to be sold. If anyone has firmer info on this, I join Jock in pleading for us to have it.
As to Mavis/Amazon, I have no knowledge. She does not, of course, belong to TARS, nor, I think, to the WSM, but to the Altounyan family. Please correct me if I'm wrong on this.
Maybe the news in the next 'Signals' will help. I regret that TARS members tend to think that everyone understands the TARS eccentric terminology, so let me explain that 'Signals' is the name of the Newsletter of the Arthur Ransome Society, and the next issue is due in December. If further info is published therein, I undertake to relay it to this board.