Museum failures

I have to agree with your previous correspondents (Letters, 2 & 3 March) regarding the late-night parties at the National Museum of Scotland. A museum is not a proper environment for late-night drunken revellers.

I actually attended one of these soirées and the public were running riot. I was fearful for the welfare of the artefacts.

I believe these events should be stopped. After all, these objects are owned by the people of Scotland, not the greedy management, who charge £10 per head for entry.

I also believe the application to the Lottery Fund for phase two development of the museum should be stopped, as the organisation at Chambers Street is just a money-making exercise now; with its three cafés and four shops it resembles a glorified shopping mall.

G Gardner

Calder Crescent

Edinburgh

I AM not an expert on the Highland Clearances, however the newly refurbished Museum of Scotland appears to wish to make the Highland Clearances as tourist-friendly as possible.

Its limited display depicts the diaspora following the Highland Clearances as some type of “travel broadening the mind opportunity” rather than tyrannical ethnic cleansing by the Scottish landed gentry to make room for sheep and shooting estates.

History, unfortunately, is frequently raw in tooth and claw and should be represented accurately as such. When the displaced Scots arrived in Nova Scotia or Australia, they themselves frequently proceeded to displace the native population from their land, an element of the story which also fails to receive any mention in the “Braveheart school of history” celebrated in the Museum of Scotland.

Neil Sinclair

Clarence Street

Edinburgh