bullets and bombs

Somehow, I've managed never to have gone to the Imperial War Museum before (rather chillingly magnificent buildings - from 1815-1930 they were the site of Bedlam, or the Bethlehem Hospital for the Insane - which, since I'd managed to time my visit neatly to coincide with screaming children at half term, still seemed haunted with cries). But having taught C20th English culture this term, and having pillaged their web site for images, I thought that it was about time that I went to look for myself...

If I hadn't been struck by the black, white and grey composition involving a Muslim woman taking a photograph on her cell phone, I would have chosen this picture as the P of the D - a relic of the first world war - a bible, or prayer book - I couldn't quite see - that had been in a soldier's breast pocket and had stopped a bullet from entering his heart. The personal memorabilia of all kinds were the most affective objects - much more so than the Gatling guns and military uniforms, though the displays made very good use of recorded sound, from voice-over letters being read aloud, to "It's a Long Way to Tipperary," to bugles, to the whine of bombs. War certainly emerged as a very nasty thing (though perhaps the most unpleasant footage of all was of Vietnam), and wartime as full of inconveniences as much as heroism: all of this good messages to send The Young. In other words, the displays were very good indeed in bringing home the combination of mundanity and terror. But I was also drawn to Edith Cavell's stuffed dog, and a taxidermed pigeon, in a kind of parachute sling, just as it would have been tossed out of one of the very tiny airplanes...