THE IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUMSnow! We woke to snow and it was quite heavy although it didn't last long and it didn't stick. Nonetheless it was very pretty - especially from a centrally-heated hotel room.
After dealing with basic travel things (i.e. laundry) we headed off in separate directions. I went to the Imperial War Museum to see two particular exhibitions. On the way, I stopped to have a quick look at the house in which William Bligh, a less than towering figure in Australian History, lived. Interestingly on the blue plaque in front of the house the only mention is of the Bounty mutiny.
On to the museum where, in the entrance hall, there is enough military hardware to mount a small war! My interest, however, was in the exhibitions on "The Children's War," which dealt with the life of London children during the years of World War II; and a Holocaust exhibition.
Both were brilliantly mounted but as seems to me to be an unfortunate problem in such shows, they were not as well maintained as they should have been. Many of the "Press Here For ..." elements of the exhibitions did not work and in some places the lettering in signs had fallen or peeled off. Having said that, there was much that was good and thought provoking.
The first of these was a very large exhibition with a London street and a London house of the early '40s as a part of it. I was astonished at the number of Londoners killed in the air raids and the number of children relocated to the country. My favourite part of the exhibition was one letter from a six year old lad to his mother which said something like, "Dear Mum, they have something here called Spring, and they have it every year!" You can just imagine some youngster from the East End who had never seen a glorious Spring watching the countryside come to life for the first time.
The Holocaust exhibition was extensive although I felt that it emphasized the taking in of Jewish refugees by Britain to a greater degree than was justified. On the other hand, it did do justice to the support for the Nazis in Britain and did an excellent job on the growth of anti-antisemitism in Germany and its partner states.
One of the most surprising things was the large number of people of all ages, not just at the museum, but attending the two exhibitions. I was impressed by the number of parents and grandparents explaining elements of the exhibitions to children. "History," I thought, "is alive and well at the Imperial War Museum."
Meanwhile Virginia had walked up to Kensington Palace to meet her friend and work colleague, Christine Howard and Christine's daughter, Ruth. Christine is on holiday in England having visited Ruth in Lund, Sweden, where she is studying for a Master's Degree. They lunched at the Orangery, a flash eatery with prices to match. After lunch and afternoon tea there they walked back to Queensway to do some shopping.
Virginia and I joined forces in the later afternoon and after an hour or so recovery time went out to dinner at a very pleasant Italian restaurant near the hotel. Although there was no more snow, the temperature hovered around freezing all day.
By the way, we're convinced that we have finally worked out the way to travel on these long hauls. Although neither Virginia nor I seem to suffer extensively from Jet Lag, we've noticed that taking our travel over several days and taking daylight flights wherever possible means that when we arrive at our final destination we can jump straight into whatever activities we wish.
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