Once Upon A Wartime – Family Day Out

If like us, you like to have a mix of get out and do days as well as some wind down days during half term, you may like to know about the newest exhibition at The Imperial War Museum, Manchester that launched this week and runs until 2 September 2012. We love museums as they are free, very child friendly and you can either get a great lunch their, or take your own picnic.

Once Upon A Wartime is all about exploring books for children about war and the true events that inspired them. The recent release of the film War Horse made this part of the exhibition very popular. The exhibition included the original painting which inspired the author Michael Morpurgo, and lots of other artefacts. We really liked the story surrounding Carrie’s War. It seemed to really resonate with my 7 year old as we discovered about the young girl who was evacuated to Wales during WWII and what it would have been like to leave your family and live with strangers. Other titles in the exhibition are The Machine Gunners, Silver Swordand The Little Soldier. All brilliantly brought to life in all different forms, recreations of bunkers, overhead fleets of planes casting shadows on the floor, models of the buildings featured in the books. We could have  spent all day in this special exhibition but there was so much more to see.

This half-term week is a Family Festival, which includes lots of story telling within the museum and craft activities throughout the days. Here are mine awaiting the story of Oskar the cat who travelled across Berlin after the wall was erected.

There are lots of hands on activities too, camouflage bunker to try on capes and hats – you can’t see my 2YO can you? Completely camouflaged!

There are lots of computer interactions, exhibitions that you can change the displays of, and artefact handling sessions throughout the day.

There was a very entertaining story telling session from Katrice Horsley, the new National Storytelling Laureate. She was brilliantly engaging with the children, even being heckled on a few occasions by them. It made me up my game when reading the bedtime story last night.

Who says girls aren’t interested in tanks? She was more impressed by this than her little brother.

We had a gorgeous lunch, which if you are passing the area is worth dropping into the museum for on it’s own. Fabulous home cooked food in a very relaxed atmosphere. Lots of colouring activities and crayons dotted around the place with a great view across the canal (although it was a very misty view for us on our visit).

We did have a great day out, and the kids loved it:

However, it was also a very moving and humbling visit. The museum is very cleverly laid out around the timeline of wars from 1914 right up to present day. Personal artefacts are very difficult to look at without feeling a great amount of sadness. A huge arch of suitcases and bags which people have had to quickly gather up their belongings makes a very powerful statement.

There is a real Harrier Jump Jet within the entrance of the main exhibition which is a very powerful symbol of modern warfare.

The new landscape - BBC Media City across the water

Museum on the right, The Lowry on the left, bridge is low

Great excitement as the bridge is raised for a ghost ship, as nothing came through!

Even more powerful though is a newly installed exhibition featuring a huge section of twisted steel from The World Trade Centre. 7 metres high, ravaged, rusted and a terrifying reminder of conflict in our lifetime.