A North Yorkshire modern history theme museum has been winning tourism awards for years. Dan Rutstein visited Eden Camp to see what all the fuss is about

As you stumble through the submarine, smoke filling the air, men drowning around you, you know you are somewhere special.

You burst outside, almost blinded by the light, before entering the noisy, smelly atmosphere of the blitz. The injured cry out every few seconds, their bodies strewn across the damaged bricks of a bombed-out house.

As you can guess, this is not an ordinary museum.

If the weather isn't great, you have the whole day to kill and you have any kind of interest in the Second World War, there are few better places to go than Eden Camp.

With our short attentions spans and need to be entertained, the Second World War museum provided my party with all we wanted.

A former prisoner of war camp, you wander through the old accommodation huts, knowing that you are walking through a piece of living history.

Where Germans and Italians once slept during our war with Mr Hitler, there are now walls covered in all kinds of interesting and illuminating information about the war effort.

For older generations, it is a chance to reminisce, for younger folk a chance to learn about our past.

As a result, the place was bustling with visitors both young and old, the exhibitions simple enough for children, advanced enough for the inquiring mind of an adult.

You cannot escape the sense of history as you wander through huts, and past the selection of tanks, bomb shelters, aircraft and look-out towers. The huts cover a range of subjects from the blitz to women at war, from the U-boat menace to civil defence.

Each topic is sensitively covered, and although there is a sense of realism, the grim realities of war are not represented so graphically that you have anything to hide from the children. I did feel though that the lack of any reference to the Holocaust seemed strange.

It is very much a full day out, and if by the time you get to hut 20 you feel the need for a break, then the refreshments are more than adequate.

The rather bizarre cinema-seat bar is worth a visit, but there is no need to stay the two hours we did.

This museum, winner of the Yorkshire Tourism Board Visitor Attraction of the Year 1998, is well worth a visit.

Fact File

Eden Camp, close to A64 junction and on the A169 Malton to Pickering road.

Open daily: 10am to 5pm, last admission 4pm.

Admission: adults £3.50, children and OAPS £2.50.

Further information: 01653 697777.

PICTURE: Sand bags of fun at Eden Camp, near Malton, which brings the Second World War to life for visitors