War and Honey

On a beautiful London summer day, a small group of us headed to the Imperial War Museum near Waterloo station.  It is housed in the previous location of Bethlehem Royal Hospital, a mental institution, which was truncated to Bethlem or Bedlam, which is where we get the word.  Out front we were greeted by a slice of the Berlin Wall which tells us to "Change Your Life."

Once inside, there were several huge war machines to greet us: Sherman tanks, a Churchill tank, a Spitfire, a flying bomb.  I really wanted to check out the Blitz experience.  I remember hearing something like 40% of London was damaged in the Blitz and I am constantly trying to learn more about what was bombed when.  In the Blitz Experience, a group of about 20 people huddle in a dark room while a voice over tells us that his name is George and he's the local guy in charge of herding people into the shelters.   We sit in the shelter while sounds of planes and bombs pour through the speakers.  The lights flash and the room shakes - a little.  The voice over expands to include voices of other neighbors "joining" us in the shelter.  One voice over encourages us to sing Roll Out the Barrels.  Then we are instructed to come out of the shelter and see what happened to the neighborhood.   A guide shines his flashlight on the appropriate diorama.  We see scenes of broken houses with broken windows.  Then the guide directs us to a different diorama which is in miniature.  St Paul in the background, a tiny version of London buildings turns orange and falls away.  And then we see a life size section of a house and then back to a miniature and so on.  We finally, and mercifully, end up at a makeshift tea spot which would have served tea to those helping with the clean up.  I skipped the Trench Experience as it was smelly.

Most of the museum was quite serious with lots of uniforms and real items from the time.  I started to get some sense of the Blitz from the newsreel footage they had, some even in color.  It was unreal to see how much of London was just broken.  And to associate that damage with still existing pock marks on surviving buildings.  It made the threat of occupation very real, something that we as Americans have never really lived with in the past 200 years, give or take.

There was an exhibit of rations.  Food rations as well as clothing rations were displayed.  There was also a selection of clothing that had been made during wartime and used very conservative cuts such as narrow lapels so as not to waste cloth.  You got only 26 rations per year and a ladies suit and blouse was 11.  It never occurred to me that cloth would be a rare commodity in wartime.  And it made me anxious.

But not as upset as the Holocaust section.  As much as we have seen, read, heard about the Holocaust, it never ceases to disturb.  The photos of the dead, those about to be executed, the descriptions from the guards...you can't help but question why we do this to each other.  And the whole of the War Museum became a bit unbearable.

My friends felt the same and we managed a stiff Bourbon drink before heading to the much happier Honey Festival.  There, we dove into a huge crowd and descended upon several vendors of liquid gold.  I spent some time talking to one of the vendors from Surrey about beekeeping.  Easy - she tells me.  And this is her second year and the bees are doing well.  I hear that London bees are actually fairing well despite the bee issues of their cousins.  And I brought home some Surrey honey as well as some from a South London area.  And they are delicious!

A sweet ending certainly.