This was our first trip to Bedford and we planned to get there early (before the museums opened) and have a look around the shops. But... to be honest the shops weren't really worth looking round, albeit Rose did get some books from the Works and some other sundries from Primark. Aside from that it was a bit of a dead loss and looked rather sorry for itself to be honest.
Still, we found The Higgins Museum without too much trouble and actually we were 15 mins early (we booked our free tickets for 11:30) but since there was hardly anyone there it wasn't an issue and they let us go straight in. We said we wanted to the see the 'film' about the airships and... immediately the guy behind the desk started to explain that it wasn't a 'documentary' and that it was more of an art film...
Yes, no problem. So we went in and another lady was standing there and asked if we were looking to see the film and we said 'yes' and she again started to explain that it was quite 'arty' and not a straightforward 'documentary about airships'. I guess all this should have given us the hint that this might not actually be a 'documentary about airships' after all, and indeed it wasn't.
We were invited to go through a large pair of doors and we found ourselves in a quite large room (the screen being the whole long wall) with about 5 wicker chairs, two deckchairs, several beanbags and some rugs with the outlines of countries cut into them (and out of them). For some reason these were glued to the floor.
We sat in the wicker chairs (which were not terribly comfortable it must be said) and waited a few minutes for the film to start. Two other people arrived and sat right on the other side of the room in the other wicker chairs. The lights dimmed and for the next 20-25 minutes we were assailed by endless computer graphics apparently simulating the 'hopes and dreams' of people - or something. It began with six 'molecular' figures dancing (actually two figures repeated three times at slightly different angles) with some quite cool ambient music playing. This went on for about five minutes before we heard a booming voice spouting all sorts of cobblers including the epic nonsense 'I am your retro future'.
Whatever the fuck that means.
But this hyperbole was rather undercut when he started jabbering on about the 'weight of biscuits'. Whaaaaaaaaat is he talking about??? This went on, the graphics were good, but at such scale they were quite overpowering and a couple of times I looked away from the screen because it made me feel slightly nauseous. Then finally 25 minutes into the film the graphics coalesced into an airship of sorts, and then an airship on fire.
The screen was filled with a flapping flag and there followed about five minutes of grainy footage of people in factories making the airship projected onto it while the booming voice returned spouting pointless phrases about cutting, sewing, folding, gluing, etc...
After this we were back to the computer graphics for another fifteen minutes before the screen was filled with a selection of people 'singing' in close harmony like a 70s prog rock album. It was very, very odd. And like a 70s prog rock album we probably would have enjoyed it more had we been 'high'!
We left, utterly bewildered and kind of understanding why the lady though it might be a good idea to see the 'Airship' exhibition before seeing the 'installation'. So we had high hopes that the exhibition would make sense of what we had just witnessed. But no such luck. The 'exhibition' (such as it was) was more interested in telling the stories of people who worked at the factory (or their fathers) and recounting local amateur dramatic re-enactments from 1990 and expended very little energy explaining what had actually happened to make the story so important and tragic.
We ambled into the next room to find it filled with paintings of local scenes (many of which would have been better left unpainted to be quite honest) - derelict buildings and buildings during demolition seemed to be particularly favoured by the artists of Bedford. That and the bridge. And slums. Actually a few of them were quite good, but there was one particularly shit one that I could have painted.
Then we entered the main part of the museum and quickly skimmed past the endless pots and partly reconstructed pots, animal bones, pieces of stone and the odd gourd. We also skimmed another room detailing the local history of Bedford - and actually it was here we actually discovered that the R101 crashed in France, not Bedford!
There were some better parts of the museum upstairs, the best of which was probably the Edward Bawden room which detailed some of his artworks.
I had forgotten what this was all about but once inside we watched a quick video which gave us a good starting point. Basically, the Panacea society was formed by a number of women living in Bedford as a sort of Christian 'cult' founded in 1919, it followed the teachings of the Devonshire prophetess Joanna Southcott, who died in 1814, and campaigned for Southcott's sealed box of prophecies to be opened according to her instructions. The society believed Bedford to be the original site of the Garden of Eden.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panacea_Society
It also told similar stories of other charlatans based in the United States, and also made much of Joanna Southcott and her box of prophecies...
This museum was quite interesting and occasionally humorous, this sign in particular made us chuckle.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joanna_Southcott
An intriguing tale in itself which apparently drew much media attention in the 1970s and even featured in a sketch by Monty Python's Flying Circus!
On balance, while the Higgins Museum was largely a disappointment, the Panacea Museum made up for it, being a fascinating story of self delusion and nonsense!
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