I was There: Room of Voices


Moving installation at the Imperial War Museum of recordings of people’s memories of Armistice Day.

These were played in a darkened room with pillars in the middle and neon strips on the walls. The light levels rose gradually during the sequence of recordings. The voices came from different speakers around the room and were in a wonderful variety of accents. The sound coming from around the room gave the whole thing a sense of life and movement.

The stories were poignant and moving. I loved the chap who said he’d been marching to the front when they were met my other soldiers coming towards them announcing the war was over. In a very matter of fact voice he said “so we came back and buried our dead.” Also the nurse who saw five of her charges die on 11 November 1918 and couldn’t view it as a happy day. At the end there was a chap who’d lost a leg and was given an artificial one and told he could go now. He set off on a mile’s walk to a bus with his back pack and a poorly fitted new leg!

It was nice to look round the room beyond which had pictures you could take of the speakers and their biographies.

Closes on 31 March 2019

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