Second World War exhibition showcased at Woodhorn Museum

Jul 25 2009 by David Black, The Journal

FASCINATING memories of life on the home front and in foreign battlefields during the Second World War are showcased in a major new exhibition at a North East tourist attraction.

Northumberland at War tells the story of those who defended the county's towns and villages, toiled in the fields to produce food and were evacuated from their urban homes to the countryside as Britain's troops fought the enemy overseas between 1939 and 1945.

It recalls the experiences of people who served in the so-called Dad's Army local defence force and Women's Land Army, young wartime evacuees, Bevin Boys who laboured in North East mines, and even a German prisoner who worked on a Northumberland farm.

The exhibition, which opens today at the £16m Woodhorn Museum and Archives Centre near Ashington to mark the 70th anniversary of the outbreak of war, also showcases a Berwick-born soldier who became a prisoner of war of the Japanese.

Northumberland at War tells its story through the eyes of eight real people, whose memories have been saved for posterity on special oral history recordings held at the Woodhorn museum. Visitors to the exhibition can use old wartime-style telephone sets to listen to the recordings. They can view a replica of the crude Anderson shelters built during the war to protect people against bombing raids by the German Luftwaffe, specially re-created living room and kitchen sets from the 1940s and an end-of-the-war street party.

The exhibition is accompanied by a special soundtrack featuring air raid sirens, news broadcasts from the time and people cheering to mark the end of hostilities.