Oscar-winning screenwriter Simon Beaufoy is backing the campaign to save Bradford’s National Media Museum from potential closure, which he said would be “an act of despair”.

The Keighley-born writer, who also won a Golden Globe and a BAFTA for Slumdog Millionaire and whose famous credits include The Full Monty, has fond recollections of his first trip there as a child.

Mr Beaufoy was one of the guest speakers at the 19th Bradford International Film Festival this year and has now added his protests about the threat to the museum.

Along with the National Railway Museum in York and the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester, the museum is under threat if a Government spending review on June 26 cuts the Science Museum Group budget too far.

The group has warned if that happens, one muses might have to close.

Mr Beaufoy said: “I remember seeing the National Media Museum (or National Museum of Film and Photography as it was then) for the first time as a child. An amazing, sleek building standing above what I thought then to be a very old-fashioned and uninspiring city. Inside was even better. This was like no museum I had ever been in. Not only could I touch the exhibits, I became part of them, made news programmes, played cameraman, took photographs of myself in making stupid poses. It was way ahead of its time in engaging the imagination as well as the intellect.

“This is also the place where I watched the footage of the Hindenberg as it crashed, over and over again on a terrible loop. I was captivated by film in this museum.

“For me, it is the best building in Bradford. For those who visit from all over the world, it has some of the finest collections of photography that exist.

“It also has some of the finest people in their fields working there. I cannot imagine the city without it. It would be an act of despair to deprive Bradford of one its most significant assets.”

To sign the Telegraph & Argus online petition to save the museum or to download a paper copy, visit thetelegraphandargus.co.

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