h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

So Remembrance Day is coming up soon. Mama tells me. She’s bought poppies. She got given a lot of them so either the nice elderly gentlemen doing the selling took pity on her as I tried to eat one and my Glorious Big Brother lost his twice in two minutes or she was generous with the donation. Anyway, it occurred to Mama that she probably ought to explain to us what the little red flowers are for, and half way through that, she discovered that she had never actually talked to my Glorious Big Brother about war more generally either. He’s not usually much interested in the activities of human animals.

That was a fun conversation to have going down the escalator in ASDA. Mama doesn’t think. Particularly when he said, with the slightest hint of anxiety in his voice, ‘I don’t want to do that, Mama.’ Mama reassured him, of course, but it is also true that conscription is still in force for 18 year old males in Russia. You can get sent to the border with Finland and spend your time wishing something would happen, or you can get sent to Chechnya where you really hope it doesn’t. Anyway, Mama made a mental note to remind my Glorious Big Brother of the advantages of a university education when the time comes and moved briskly on.

None of this has much to do with the Imperial War Museum, except that it does highlight how much of the point a toddler can miss when you take them around. As far as my Glorious Big Brother is concerned, Mama suspects that on the one occasion she and he visited, he thought it was a space with some large transportation devices, most of which he wasn’t allowed to climb on, interspersed with some excellently twisty corridors he could disappear round, giving Mama a heart attack each time as she does not know the museum well and every time he went out of sight she imagined him lost in the maze forever. Plus, how could my Glorious Big Brother be expected to concentrate on anything like the point of the place when there were hordes of school party teenagers everywhere all of whom thought he and his boundless enthusiasm and chattiness were absolutely charming? The Imperial War Museum being *the* school trip venue for all year nine and above students. You really haven’t seen anything until you have seen 15 year old boys struggling not to coo over a toddler. Mama says.

Anyway, highlights included the plane interior which my Glorious Big Brother could play hide and seek with the teenagers in until their teachers noticed and called them to order. Mama also found the exhibition of Victoria and George crosses interesting, because of the focus on the people behind the medals. There is also an experience of the blitz… er… experience which Mama thinks should be quite exciting given that they wouldn’t let my Glorious Big Brother in because of his youthful age, but to be honest, she doesn’t remember much more about it because she really did keep losing my Glorious Big Brother and this sort of thing does not leave her with much analytical capacity.

Mama’s memories of the café are also clouded by the battle she lost with my Glorious Big Brother over the edibility of what she considered to be the excellent parsnip soup, and it‘s probable that at the time she was pregnant with me so she wasn’t drinking coffee either.

This may have had some bearing on how frazzled she felt too.

[Amy P]

Sounds highly familiar - the Brussels equivalent is very popular with my two. It has a plane you can climb through, as well as lots of other things that you can't interact with, but at the same time I'm not worried that they might break - like a tank.

Last time we were there, real Belgian parachutists were practising jumping from the rafters on the ceiling, and then swinging about on bits of rope, which was an added bonus.

sprout

I can never go to the Imperial War Museum again. The friends I was with wanted to see the Holocaust exhibition and I started weeping and hyperventilating half-way round. Awkward.

I've been to some fabulous exhibitions there with my daughters! It's not just about fighting, over the years we really loved the human interest ones about evacuation, rationing, post war design and so on. And we all cried at the Holocaust exhibition.

When they were older teenagers they demanded to go again to see the actual Bullet in a Bible that inspired the band Green Day - whose visit was filmed and is here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWe4xBBnC2I

A few years ago I also had my car stolen from right outside it, stranding me in London with a 9 year old and an 11 year old. Just after midnight on New Year's Eve.

Sol, I'm loving your journals! My girls are adults now, but I always say they grew up in museums and galleries. And the really nice thing is that they regularly send me a message to thank me for these experiences when they are reminded of something we did.

I have a car story too! We tried to go to the IWM in the car the first time. We got in, we drove down there, we circled the Museum failing to find a car park (this was when we first got the car and I had not quite plumbed the depths of London's lack of parking solutions. Small town girl. We drive to the corner shop. And park). We also failed to find any convenient free parking in the streets around, .and the pay and display options were quite extortionate. So we drove back home.

And then a few weeks later we got a congestion charge fine in the post for 60 quid. Hadn't realised it extended south of the river (did I mention, new car, small town girl?)

Still, yours tops that, coely.

To be honest, if they are doing it right, the Holocaust exhibition *should* make you cry. I expect they are very used to it. tho, Ag.

Blast, and sprout, that sounds like my kind of museum. Parachutists! Cool.

The only Imperial War Museum I know is the one at Duxford. We went there in the era of the Gulf Wars - I vaguely remember loads of sand-coloured tanks, vans and small aircraft.