Can anyone locate the building? And what do you make of the weather – was it windy, blowing from our left to right, causing nearly all the jackets of the men to flip up?

ON July 19, the Imperial War Museum in London will reopen with a major new exhibition about the First World War, utilising the museum’s unparalleled collection of 1,300 wartime items.

The story of the bombardment of Hartlepool, Whitby and Scarborough which, as regular Memories readers will know, was on December 16, 1914, will feature in the exhibition through these postcards.

At the centre of the exhibition is a towering 9.2 inch howitzer gun, called Mother, which was used in the Battle of the Somme – see Gunner George’s diary. In fact, our diarist will be represented on a map on which all the graves of men who died in the battle are marked, plus there’s a Union flag which was used by a chaplain as he conducted some of those burials.

In last week’s Memories, Gunner George’s diary spoke of the loss at sea of Earl Kitchener, whose famous moustachioed face shouted from recruiting posters: “Your Country Needs You”.

The exhibition will look at how Kitchener became a celebrity with objects such as a Kitchener doll, letters from adoring fans asking to marry him, and a letter from nine-year-old Alfie Knight pleading to allow him to enlist as he “can ride jolley quick on my bicycle and…am a good shot with a revolver”.

So if you are planning a trip to London this summer, the war museum should be on your list of “must visit” places.