Abby's Road; Go and Dare: The Churchill War Rooms

The Churchill War rooms were interesting beyond belief! It was so cool to be able to see this "bunker" that Churchill and his government were eventually forced down into during The Blitz, when Nazi Germany bombed London for 57 consecutive days during WWII. Churchill remained above ground to show his people he wasn't afraid and keep up British morale, but was forced down into the War Rooms when his home and office were damaged by a bomb.

For those of you that need a little refresher course, I'll tell you in one sentence, "The Blitz on British cities – night-time raids as opposed to daytime to enhance the fear factor – was Hitler’s attempt to destroy Britain’s morale. The attacks started on September 7th 1940 and continued to May 1941."http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/blitz_and_world_war_two.htm
...and thank you, internet.
The museum itself was just reopened recently, so we got the privilege to basically see these rooms in the state they were originally, minus the fake dummies posing on the glassed off rooms...I have a feeling these are new additions ;)

This picture to the left is one of the MANY propaganda posters littered throughout, Churchill is a little pitbull/bulldog, he is..he is? Anyhow, I learned he painted down under to pass the time. (I do realize that last sentence was random, I'm leaving it. :D) These propoganda posters are my example of how I found artistic expression as an "element of identity". There were countless propaganda posters telling people things from "don't eat bread, eat potatoes" all the way to getting young men to apply for the army through persuasive art images. One of the most famous examples American's have adopted without the meaning behind it, which was to help the British people keep up their morale during a time of extreme horror and fear; "Keep Calm and Carry On".

In the museum, I found a picture of both Winston Churchill and Adolf Hitler as babies, it's like they were BEGGING me to make a picstich ;) So here you go, draw all the irrelevant conclusions and comparisons you want.

The second "element of identity" I noted was traditions. I discovered this on grand scale throughout the museum in elements I could physically touch, as well as in a very cool digital touch-screen timeline thing where I could literally touch ANY year, then narrow that year down by the month, then further narrow that down by a selection of days, all with a cool fact to offer.

I learned the tradition of feet binding ended February 1st 1902, and that the production of the first teddy bear named after President Theodore Roosevelt was March1, 1903, and--most interesting of all-- Vincent can Gough died two days after shooting himself in the chest! Did not know ANY of these things 3 minutes beforehand so thanks, war rooms, I enjoyed you!

Also, did you know that Mr. Potato Head was the FIRST toy advertised on TV?! yeahuh!

I know these traditions/facts are all relatively superficial in comparison with the horrors that happened in London during that time, but don't worry, I did learn about the Blitz as well.

To end this blog on a interesting note, I would like to combine both the history/tradition and art with propaganda posters about eating less bread and more potatoes in order to ration food during the war. I realize this came in a very real context at the time, but taken out of context today, they are QUITE hilarious, stay tuned below...