A helmet to make you cry.
As a kid I used to go and visit what was called then the German Underground Hospital here in Jersey, Channel Islands. (Now known as the War Tunnels). One display always intrigued me, quite a simple display but quite striking at the same time. I was especially taken by the way they had what looked like half a German helmet poking through the display board. I thought this was very effective and as a 10 year old reckoned I could recreate what they had done with a couple of my helmets at home and display them in the same way. I spent hours drawing a German helmet shape onto a piece of thin ply and then cutting out a groove into which I could pass my helmet and then have a superb display. Hours were spent and failure was always the outcome. It was only years later when much older and a little taller could I see how they had in fact achieved the display I had so eagerly sought to attain. Now many moon late I have actually acquired the very same helmet or should I say half a helmet. It cost me good money even so, but I just had to have it. Madness I know but the hours of frustration it caused, to look at it now just makes me smile.
I guess when this display was put together no one ever gave a second thought to chopping up a nice complete helmet in such a way. Over the years it would have been seen by literally millions of tourists and I wonder how many if any ever realised what they were looking at. To do such a thing today would be almost criminal but museums etc have moved on a bit from those days when things just did not matter. When cut up this helmet would have had no more value than maybe £5 or £10 pounds.
I do wonder what happend to the other half.
All the best from Jersey,
D.
.
by DougB
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