Can a kids show on the First World War be fun?
For many of us museumgoing mothers, the Imperial War Museum in London is it. Off the beaten track, easy to park near, never too full, wholesome café, crammed with Spitfires flying from the ceiling, tanks to peer into and enough evacuee outfits to keep the most hyperactive kids busy for a full afternoon. The Imperial War Museum never dampens enthusiasm with Do Not Touch signs, and always moves me to tears. Suddenly I am struck by a photograph, a child’s gas mask or a plate with a day’s rations on it – hit in the gut by a profound sense of war’s waste. Even if you miss out the permanent galleries, with the Holocaust Exhibition or Crimes Against Humanity (not for under-16s), you cannot fail to be touched by the gore and glamour of war. So, travelling up to Manchester to visit the Imperial War Museum North, and its Horrible Histories exhibition on the First World War, I wondered how this well-tested formula could be bettered. On the train I ask my 11-year-old son Humphrey how many times he
