The Greater Manchester Museum of Transport topped up its finances by attracting around 1,000 visitors over the six weekends that it was permitted to open before the second England lockdown from 5 November.
It had been awarded Good to Go accreditation by Visit England for its reopening protocols including cleaning and staffing, but was required to close for the four-week lockdown. It hoped to reopen for the three weekends before Christmas, and reopen again in the new year, but the Tier 3 pandemic control restrictions in Greater Manchester and much of the north of England require museums to remain closed.
It has maintained contact with supporters through social media, with regular activities such as Saturday Showcase featuring its exhibits, Throwback Thursday with a nostalgic scene from the past and Mystery Monday, in which the museum asks followers to help place the locations of photographs in its archives with no known location.
‘We have tens of thousands of images in our photo library, and in many cases we recognise the bus, but not where the photo was taken,’ says social media editor Paul Williams.‘So every Monday we put out a picture and hand it over to the armchair detectives out there, …
