In the wars

As Antonia Cundy relays, in recent years military museums have shi ed from exhibiting hardware to voices, individual experience, and the disruption war causes to everyday lives (“The three worst words,” Aug/Sept).

The famous hardware in the Imperial War Museum spoke to how Britain—as an empire—fought the world wars. Exhibitions of planes, tanks, weaponry, uniforms, unit diaries and maps of terrain revealed feats of engineering, ingenuity, discipline, courage, and organisation: all things that helped Britain develop its world power in the first place.

Now the world wars have faded from living recollection, exhibits should be not so much aide-memoires as ways to show that terrible things happened to real people, and that those people had emotions like us. This diverse and human focus makes the new approach interesting. It also suggests a shi from presenting “what we did” to trying to uncover who we are today.

Helen Parr is the author of “Our Boys: The Story of a Paratrooper”