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Open: Open daily, 10am-5.30pm
From Spain with love: Francisco Ipo has worked at Imperial War Mueseum Cafe for five months
He came out with both guns blazing. How many times have you heard that? Applied to a politician who's struggling to hold on to his career, perhaps, or to a CEO embroiled in boardroom battle. I've even read it about a golfer. Yet, as an analogy for courage and resilience, it seems insulting when used about anyone other than servicemen, a point demonstrated silently and magnificently by the mighty guns fronting the Imperial War Museum. Twin canons, looking like an exaggeration of Churchill's famous two-fingered salute, dwarfing everything nearby.
The Museum sits in an unexpected swathe of green in Kennington where I was meeting the actress for lunch on a cold, blue-skied day. It was her first visit to the Imperial War Museum, something I found rather shocking. In her defence, she told me that such places were mainly the province of men, but this has never deterred her in the past.
Inside the vast and sturdy building, the main foyer is magical - like a toy box magnified and brought to life. There are giant naval warheads and camouflaged tanks bearing saucy names. A portable air-raid shelter looks scarily like a Dalek. Suspended from the ceiling is a Spitfire, which looks like the Airfix models little boys used laboriously to build, until you remember that this is not a life-size toy; it's a deadly little plane flown by brave men who helped make our streets safe today.
There are lots of interactive exhibitions. We began with the Trench Experience, incorporating the deafening sounds of simulated bombing, the darkness and the overwhelming smell of ammonia. The Blitz Experience gave us tiny insight into how it must have felt for London families who, night after grim night, sought shelter in dark, cramped conditions as they waited for the all-clear.
By now we were starving and, mindful of how lucky we are not to have endured rationing, we set off for the Museum Café, which is bright, light and spacious.
With white walls, wooden chairs and pale tables, the interconnecting dining rooms are sleek and modern and cater for all tastes. Serving a variety of food all day and with hot main courses at lunchtime, this would be a great place for a large cream tea.
The actress chose stew and said it was the most remarkable stew she'd ever seen. It seemed to have a strongly eastern European influence since its component parts were beef, gherkins and beetroot, the latter giving it a glossily rich claret colour. It came with a hunk of brown bread, a slice of cheese and a piece of fruit. She said the beetroot tasted like apple but that the bread and cheese were the best she'd eaten in ages. My cottage pie was robust enough to be filling and just the right side of bland. Unmuckedabout-with mince and creamy mash: it's how cottage pie would have been during wartime, when cooks had to rely on their ingenuity instead of spices.
For pudding we had chocolate cake and a cream scone, but there was also an interesting biscuit selection --beetroot and seed (beetroot must be in season), lavender and orange, as well as Anzac biscuits. We drank water, good coffee and the fieriest ginger beer either of us had ever tasted. Other customers reflected the diversity of those in the museum: there were couples of all ages, mothers with well-behaved children and trendy-looking sixty-somethings. There is a good atmosphere, which filters down from the extremely helpful staff.
Afterwards, we tried to imagine the enormous relief that D-Day brought, and the awful statistics: over 10,000 dead; 2,000 US troops killed. We watched as an older American man traced the route he'd taken on a map and told his female companion how his comrades had fallen. We found ourselves immensely moved. One of the most inspirational sights of the day was the variety and the enthusiasm of visitors here: young and old; men and women.
We stepped out into the bright autumn day, glad we could walk away from the horrors of war and immeasurably grateful to those who were not so lucky. Just by the museum entrance stands a large chunk of the Berlin Wall and graffitied on it is a powerful message: Change Your Life.
You'll probably have bought a poppy by now, but if you've never been to the Imperial War Museum, I can recommend it. A visit should be part of the National Curriculum. It's free. And so are we.
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