THE curator of Swindon’s Museum of Computing has been nominated for a BAFTA.

On Saturday, July 23, Simon Webb and his wife, Linda, will be in London for this year’s BAFTA Young Game Designers awards ceremony.

Simon, of Grange Park, has been nominated in the Mentor category for helping hundreds of young people from in and around Swindon to learn coding and game programming.

He said: “I got an email last week and didn’t believe it at first. I was just so chuffed – it’s phenomenal.

“I have no idea who nominated me, but I guess it was somebody I taught in the past.”

The Museum of Computing in Theatre Square was founded 13 years ago and was the first of its kind in the UK.

It has exhibits from throughout the history of computing, many of them hands-on, and also organises a variety of classes and public events.

Projects have ranged from running classes for older computer novices to staging live action versions of games such as Pacman in the town centre. The museum is run entirely by volunteers.

As well as being curator of the museum, 55-year-old Simon is a co-founder, and many of the exhibits were originally part of a private collection which filled his home.

He has been known to joke that the museum saved his marriage.

Simon said: “It was probably five years ago that myself and another volunteer started the children’s computer club at the museum.

“That was inspired by the fact that when I was a young man, probably ten or eleven years old, I used to go to a children’s computer club at the Museum and Art Gallery in Bath Road when all my mates were going to the Saturday morning cinema.

“When we started the computer museum I really wanted to start a children’s club for it, and it’s been an absolutely huge success.”

Simon discovered that he very much enjoyed teaching. Part of his work involves helping young people not just to be consumers of items such as games but to become producers, and to know how computers work.

“It’s evolved into a great environment where kids can come along and work on their own projects in a fantastically supportive atmosphere where there are real experts who can point them in the right direction.”

The museum also regularly hosts groups from local schools, and Simon is in overall charge of the visits.

“About four weeks ago we had a group from King William Street School. They were from Year One, five and six years old, and I got them coding. They all wrote their own Space Invaders games and they were very excited that they could do this – that they could take control and make a computer do anything they wanted.”

The Museum of Computing’s website is museumofcomputing.org.uk