The sight of a British Legion poppy seller in the city centre made a visit to Derby's refurbished military gallery all the more significant, providing a reminder, if one was needed, of the ongoing role of British armed forces.
The Soldiers' Story, which is a redevelopment of an existing military gallery, chronicles the history of three local regiments, the 9th/12th Lancers, the Sherwood Foresters and the Derbyshire Yeomanry, all of which recruited from the Derby area.
The new exhibition is unashamedly outward-looking, unlike some regimental museums, and aims to take a broader view of the regiments represented and the places their soldiers served in. This is spelled out as you enter the gallery by a graphic stating that the aim is to show how life has changed for soldiers since 1815.
There is also a helpful glossary explaining military terminology - dragoons, I discovered, were mounted infantry who dismounted to fight on foot.
The exhibition is situated in a lofty gallery deep within the museum building, and more distinctive signage may be required if visitors are not to miss this new development within a rather confusing muddle of other displays.
Once into the gallery though, the designers have created large, almost architectural scale, graphic partitions that reach up into the roof space and break up the exhibition into more manageable areas for visitors.
The fact that the exhibition tells the story of three distinct regiments, each with its own identity and history, must have presented designers with a real headache when trying to tell a coherent story. This dilemma has been addressed by the use of colour-coded graphics running around the walls of the exhibition, with each regiment identified by a distinct colour.
The chronological story of each is told in a horizontal band of buff, blue and green, with images mixed with text and quotations, beginning in the 18th century and continuing to the present. This neat solution works well, but it took me some minutes to work it out, and it might be worth explicitly stating the coding at the start of the exhibition.
Derbyshire men from all three regiments have fought in almost every major military campaign since the 18th century and the story is divided into broader sections, beginning with both the Napoleonic wars and the more controversial suppression of Luddite workers by the Derbyshire Yeomanry in the early 19th century.
Pleasingly, the displays are object rich, and new showcases highlight the diverse collections held by the museum. These vary in size tremendously, from small cases containing personal items to an enormous enclosure containing a full-size replica of a first world war cavalryman and his horse.
According to the museum, more than 200 objects not previously seen by visitors are now on display. Apart from the kind of material one would normally expect to see in a military exhibition - uniforms, weaponry and medals - the curators have made a lot of effort to include social history material that relates to the soldiers themselves.
Active service detailed
For me, the most interesting case was titled The Daily Routine of the Soldier, which was crammed full of personal items such as shaving gear, playing cards and rations. Two objects stood out - a tin of mock turtle soup dating from the 1950s and a "hussif" or "housewife", a pouch used by soldiers in the first world war to keep uniforms tidy and containing needles, threads and buttons.
Although the new exhibition aims to tell a broader story than before, it still has a role in honouring the individual contributions of soldiers from the regiments it chronicles. It does so respectfully in the display of five original Victoria Cross medals, awarded to soldiers who had showed exceptional bravery in campaigns as varied as the Indian Mutiny of the 1850s and the first world war.
My visit was close to Remembrance Sunday, so the first world war display was unsurprisingly the most striking. In 1914, volunteers from the Derbyshire Yeomanry were mobilised and farmers, quarrymen and coal miners (complete with their pit ponies) set off for France.
The optimism of 1914 soon faded, and the displays show how the cavalry of the 9th/12th Lancers were forced to abandon their horses and fight as infantry in the trenches.
The "war to end all wars" changed the nature of soldiering, and cavalry regiments such as the 9th/12th Lancers adopted tanks rather than horses, and their use provides the main theme for second world war displays.
The centrepiece of this is a mock-up of a tank turret. Its graphic asks visitors to "go inside and imagine what it was like to operate this tank", but the lack of interactivity and small video screen inside left me less than convinced - there was little sense of the noise and claustrophobia experienced by tank crews.
Balancing act
The museum also tells the story of the regiments in more recent times, and visitors learn that since world war two, as well as serving in Cyprus, Malaya and Germany, troops from the Sherwood Foresters guarded political prisoners at the Maze prison in Northern Ireland.
All three of the original regiments have now been amalgamated into newer larger groupings, and have served in Bosnia, Kosovo and, more recently, Afghanistan.
In the centre of the exhibition a large interactive table, complete with a world map, highlights the far-flung places that soldiers from the three Derbyshire regiments have been posted to. Close by, an interactive provides detailed archive material on individual soldiers, while another has film clips and detailed histories of each regiment.
A larger video plays continuously on the back wall of the gallery. It shows archive footage, but is not easy to view from some parts of the room. I would liked to have seen more video footage used around the gallery.
The task of curating military collections is a real juggling act, as curators have to balance the need to honour the role played by soldiers with telling the story of wars they played a part in, some of which may seem more difficult to justify today.
The Soldiers' Story succeeds on both counts and local people can be justly proud of the men and women who have served as soldiers and the exhibition which marks their contributions.
Tim Bryan is the head of collections at the Heritage Motor Centre, Gaydon
The Soldiers' Story, which is a redevelopment of an existing military gallery, chronicles the history of three local regiments, the 9th/12th Lancers, the Sherwood Foresters and the Derbyshire Yeomanry, all of which recruited from the Derby area.
The new exhibition is unashamedly outward-looking, unlike some regimental museums, and aims to take a broader view of the regiments represented and the places their soldiers served in. This is spelled out as you enter the gallery by a graphic stating that the aim is to show how life has changed for soldiers since 1815.
There is also a helpful glossary explaining military terminology - dragoons, I discovered, were mounted infantry who dismounted to fight on foot.
The exhibition is situated in a lofty gallery deep within the museum building, and more distinctive signage may be required if visitors are not to miss this new development within a rather confusing muddle of other displays.
Once into the gallery though, the designers have created large, almost architectural scale, graphic partitions that reach up into the roof space and break up the exhibition into more manageable areas for visitors.
The fact that the exhibition tells the story of three distinct regiments, each with its own identity and history, must have presented designers with a real headache when trying to tell a coherent story. This dilemma has been addressed by the use of colour-coded graphics running around the walls of the exhibition, with each regiment identified by a distinct colour.
The chronological story of each is told in a horizontal band of buff, blue and green, with images mixed with text and quotations, beginning in the 18th century and continuing to the present. This neat solution works well, but it took me some minutes to work it out, and it might be worth explicitly stating the coding at the start of the exhibition.
Derbyshire men from all three regiments have fought in almost every major military campaign since the 18th century and the story is divided into broader sections, beginning with both the Napoleonic wars and the more controversial suppression of Luddite workers by the Derbyshire Yeomanry in the early 19th century.
Pleasingly, the displays are object rich, and new showcases highlight the diverse collections held by the museum. These vary in size tremendously, from small cases containing personal items to an enormous enclosure containing a full-size replica of a first world war cavalryman and his horse.
According to the museum, more than 200 objects not previously seen by visitors are now on display. Apart from the kind of material one would normally expect to see in a military exhibition - uniforms, weaponry and medals - the curators have made a lot of effort to include social history material that relates to the soldiers themselves.
Active service detailed
For me, the most interesting case was titled The Daily Routine of the Soldier, which was crammed full of personal items such as shaving gear, playing cards and rations. Two objects stood out - a tin of mock turtle soup dating from the 1950s and a "hussif" or "housewife", a pouch used by soldiers in the first world war to keep uniforms tidy and containing needles, threads and buttons.
Although the new exhibition aims to tell a broader story than before, it still has a role in honouring the individual contributions of soldiers from the regiments it chronicles. It does so respectfully in the display of five original Victoria Cross medals, awarded to soldiers who had showed exceptional bravery in campaigns as varied as the Indian Mutiny of the 1850s and the first world war.
My visit was close to Remembrance Sunday, so the first world war display was unsurprisingly the most striking. In 1914, volunteers from the Derbyshire Yeomanry were mobilised and farmers, quarrymen and coal miners (complete with their pit ponies) set off for France.
The optimism of 1914 soon faded, and the displays show how the cavalry of the 9th/12th Lancers were forced to abandon their horses and fight as infantry in the trenches.
The "war to end all wars" changed the nature of soldiering, and cavalry regiments such as the 9th/12th Lancers adopted tanks rather than horses, and their use provides the main theme for second world war displays.
The centrepiece of this is a mock-up of a tank turret. Its graphic asks visitors to "go inside and imagine what it was like to operate this tank", but the lack of interactivity and small video screen inside left me less than convinced - there was little sense of the noise and claustrophobia experienced by tank crews.
Balancing act
The museum also tells the story of the regiments in more recent times, and visitors learn that since world war two, as well as serving in Cyprus, Malaya and Germany, troops from the Sherwood Foresters guarded political prisoners at the Maze prison in Northern Ireland.
All three of the original regiments have now been amalgamated into newer larger groupings, and have served in Bosnia, Kosovo and, more recently, Afghanistan.
In the centre of the exhibition a large interactive table, complete with a world map, highlights the far-flung places that soldiers from the three Derbyshire regiments have been posted to. Close by, an interactive provides detailed archive material on individual soldiers, while another has film clips and detailed histories of each regiment.
A larger video plays continuously on the back wall of the gallery. It shows archive footage, but is not easy to view from some parts of the room. I would liked to have seen more video footage used around the gallery.
The task of curating military collections is a real juggling act, as curators have to balance the need to honour the role played by soldiers with telling the story of wars they played a part in, some of which may seem more difficult to justify today.
The Soldiers' Story succeeds on both counts and local people can be justly proud of the men and women who have served as soldiers and the exhibition which marks their contributions.
Tim Bryan is the head of collections at the Heritage Motor Centre, Gaydon
Project data
Cost £653,000 (including building work, design and build, education packages, conservation and audio guide)
Main funder Heritage Lottery Fund, £564,000
Other funding The 9th/12th Royal Lancers Museum Trust, The Derbyshire Yeomanry Old Comrades Association, the Sherwood Foresters Museum Trustees, Derby City Council
Curator Mike Galer
Exhibition and graphics design Haley Sharpe Design
Conservation Royal Armouries, Leeds
Fit-out Beacon
Cost £653,000 (including building work, design and build, education packages, conservation and audio guide)
Main funder Heritage Lottery Fund, £564,000
Other funding The 9th/12th Royal Lancers Museum Trust, The Derbyshire Yeomanry Old Comrades Association, the Sherwood Foresters Museum Trustees, Derby City Council
Curator Mike Galer
Exhibition and graphics design Haley Sharpe Design
Conservation Royal Armouries, Leeds
Fit-out Beacon
