London’s Imperial War Museum (IWM)

Traveler’s Tales: IWM

I’ve been after my husband to take me to London’s Imperial War Museum (IMW) since last July when its World War I exhibit reopened.

We’d visited the exhibit in 2009, and I remember it well, particularly the intense “as if you were there” trench exhibit.

(We visited the actual Somme trenches in 2013).

Since I spent the last two years writing about WWI, this seemed a terrific time to see the changes and refresh my memory.

I’ve urged every friend or relative who has visited London since July to see the exhibit.

They all did.

Well?

“It was interesting,” was the most enthusiastic response.

It was.

But as my husband said, “This really wasn’t worth coming all the way from San Francisco to see.”

Fortunately, London wasn’t only our first stop.

Because he was right.

A modern museum exhibit

The IWM’s WWI exhibit is beautiful and full of audio-visual and computer aids to make a polished presentation.

It uses the latest technology in creative ways to tell the story of what happened to England and Europe 100 years ago.

You can spend hours there examining all the stations.

You’ll need that time because while I applaud museums for making their exhibits approachable for children, when you put everything down low where kids can see it at their waist level, you make it nearly impossible for adults to understand what’s going on.

When you give children control of data manipulation, adults have to stand around waiting for them to stop playing.

Very frustrating.

Like many old museum exhibits, the former exhibit had an enormous amount of “stuff.” It featured medals, uniforms, munitions, photos, you name it.

I personally like cluttered museum exhibits.

I remember six years ago standing in front of a case examining all the different types of medals and trying to guess who the famous people were.

A variety of odds and ends, messages, booklets, uniform parts, and ribbons were all there.

Everything in the IWM’s WWI exhibit is clean and neat now; push a button to bring up photos and information.

What happened to the Trenches?

I’ve visited World War I exhibits in four countries: Auckland, NZ; Paris, France; Indianapolis, USA; London, UK.

They all featured trench exhibits–where we walked through a type of trench to get a feel for what the doughboys and tommies experienced.

Several museums, including the old exhibits at the IWM, featured audiovisual —lights and sounds as if you were being bombed —along with razor wire, knocked-over stumps, and — it seems to me — the smell of earth.

Those stand out in my memory, and I called upon those memories when writing my novel.

One corner of the IWM had a depiction — loud and vivid — but it wasn’t the same.

A casual visitor will get a good overview of the war with enough different technologies involved to claim their interest.

The exhibit covered aspects of the story I wasn’t particularly familiar with (or interested in), such as the munitions produced and the labor problems involved in doing so.

The explanation of why the war began is clever and entertaining (the kids loved manipulating that one).

After two hours in the exhibit, we exited to the bookstore. I saw numerous books I’d read, took photos of books I’ll order now I’m home, and pondered a proper souvenir.

I didn’t choose anything.

When we returned home, though, my sister-in-law and brother-in-law had a gift for me. They’d gone to London in the fall, in time for my brother-in-law to take this photo:

 And while they were there, they purchased one of those red poppies–for me.

 

 

I’m satisfied. I can lay WWI to rest now.