On my bookshelf
Following the Drum by Annabel Venning
When I started at the D-Day Story in Portsmouth, my first military museum, I felt daunted and baffled by the strange new world of army museums. While frantically taking the beginners course in 20th-century armoured vehicles, I came across this book.
Venning draws heavily on personal stories of happiness, heartbreak and scandalous behaviour, from the women who gave birth while following the army during the Peninsular War (1807-14), to punishments given out to wives who were deemed to have brought disrepute to the regiment by plundering villages.
Military museums have a reputation, not fully deserved, for being rigid institutions. Many were designed to instil a sense of tradition in their predominantly male audience. This book inspired me to see the different stories their collections can tell and how we could use them to find ways of appealing to new audiences, something we’ve put into practice at the D-Day Story.
Coming as an outsider to this world, this book showed me that military collections could be for me, and for others too.
Following the Drum: The Lives of Army Wives and Daughters Past and Present, by Annabel Venning, looks at the hidden women who have been integral to the British Army from the 1660s to the modern day.
For centuries this meant following the troops on campaign and sometimes to the battlefield itself. Filled with their incredible experiences, the book describes hardships these women endured and the courage with which they overcame them.
Venning draws heavily on personal stories of happiness, heartbreak and scandalous behaviour, from the women who gave birth while following the army during the Peninsular War (1807-14), to punishments given out to wives who were deemed to have brought disrepute to the regiment by plundering villages.
Military museums have a reputation, not fully deserved, for being rigid institutions. Many were designed to instil a sense of tradition in their predominantly male audience. This book inspired me to see the different stories their collections can tell and how we could use them to find ways of appealing to new audiences, something we’ve put into practice at the D-Day Story.
Coming as an outsider to this world, this book showed me that military collections could be for me, and for others too.
Felicity Wood is the public participation officer at the D-Day Story, Portsmouth