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Acton, acton, welcome to We Have Ways and Making You Talk with me, James Holland, no out-a-day sadly.

And one of the great advantages of knowing directors of museums and being friends of theirs

is that you get sneak previews of very exciting new exhibitions and exciting new permanent exhibition.

That's what we're looking at today at our friend of the show, The National Army Museum.

And I'm here with my old pal Justin Macheski, who is indeed the director of the museum.

And Sophie Staffey, who is the creator of this particular exhibition.

You know, both of you, thank you so much for the invite.

And the learning has had this sneak preview.

Obviously, there's a lot of second world war in this museum, but absolutely not.

It's a big sweep of history. And I think it's important for us occasionally to go off-piece.

You know, we've done that with the Falklands, we've done it with Rorx Drift.

Of course, everything that came before the Second World War and the British Army feeds into what was happening in the Second World War,

and what happened in the Second World War feeds into what follows.

So I don't think it's entirely relevant and appropriate that we are here today and looking at it,

not just from the Second World War bits, but also back to the war of the Spanish succession,

wars against France from 1700s to the 1820s.

Yeah, we like wars against France, so historically, James, as you know.

And although our alliances change through history, our involvement in Europe goes right the way back to the first decades of the British Army in the late 17th century.

And so here we are in the conflict in Europe, gallery.

And it fits within the context of the Army's three really enduring roles in our history, in our island story.

And a lot of people think that governments change defense policy and governments change, you know, the size and shape of an army and what the army does.

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