Postcard views, Poppies and Post-war commemorations

In line with last weeks blog, I have decided to make sure that I really try and make the most of London and what better way to do it that to haul myself off the sofa, head into central London and spend the day learning about World War One.

Now before you stop reading, thinking that I am just going to bang out some interesting historical facts and leave it at that, give me a chance to explain. 

Imperial War Museum 

So as many of you know this year marks 100 years since the start of WW1 and in memory of this the Imperial War Museum has re-vamped it's WW1 exhibit. Now I have to admit I am not usually the first person who jumps up and down in excitement when a trip to a museum is announced but this exhibit was by far the most powerful and interesting I have seen. It starts by walking you through the years of the war starting from the empire and ending with the treaty of Versailles and the end of the war. What was so powerful about it wasn't just the different outfits (though there was a bit where you could try on what the soilders had to wear - so heavy) and posters but they way that they had videos, interactive technology and incredibly powerful propaganda posters along with original letters sent and received by Lord Kitchener. In addition to this they had the trench experience - where you turned the corner and walked though imitation trenches with gunfire and shouting reverberating around the walls of the trenches. Powerful doesn't event begin to cover it. One thing that stood out for me was the use of propaganda towards women, and how besides the use of blatant sexism with slogans such as "The Food Problem is a Woman's Problem" and "Be the man of the house, enroll for your country today" it really played up the fact that this was finally the women's chance to get good paid work. It was in many ways the start of feminism with women working in offices, farms and hospitals, and best of all not giving up their new jobs when the men returned from war. Another thing which I found particularly powerful was the that they highlighted the fact that both sides called a truce for Christmas Day and swapped stories and presents, regardless of the Trench Leaders trying to stop them (the idea being that if you have talked to someone about their family and life it would make it that much harder to kill them). Spanning over Europe and Africa up until America finally joined in the fighting, the exhibition was brought the war back into the forefront of peoples minds and showed the true brutality of the entire span of the fighting.

The Tower of London

Continuing our theme we decided to head over to the Tower of London to see the incredible poppy display which they have in commemoration of those who fell during the First World War. For those of you who have not had the chance to go and see it please do - it is phenomenal! With a ceramic poppy made and presented for each soilder, the tower itself is engulfed in a sea of red spilling from the windows and overflowing from the walls. As timing would have it we managed to make it in time to watch the sun go down while hearing the daily roll of honor. After the names of nominated members of the
commonwealth forces who were killed during the First World War were called out, the Last Post was played on the trumpet to the audience, while the sun went down over the city. It was a beautiful end to a beautiful evening. 

If you have a day to spare, or even just a few hours, I would highly recommend both of these things. We were lucky that the weather was in our favour but to be honest what made it great was the fact that it wasn't really planned and we weren't on a seclude, we just wandered around and everything happens to fall into place. 

x
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