Last updated 08:41, Friday, 19 September 2008

THIS WEEK I have been . . . going up the wall.

“Over the heather the wet winds blow . . .”

I first came across WH Auden’s poem at school and every time I approach Hadrian country the family groan as I open my mouth to quote the so-appropriate description of life on Hadrian’s Wall.

But today even they have to admit it’s apt. As we alight in a Roman fort’s car park, the heavens open with a vengeance, and I really do feel sorry for the poor souls from the warmer parts of the Roman Empire who had to patrol the million cubic yards of stone quarried, carried and put together to make up the mighty complex structure that expresses Roman civilisation so well.

But, with every visit to a historic site, we thirst to know what life was like then, to know what it looked like, felt like, smelled like, even if totally gross. And whilst Yorvik with its synthetic smells and waxwork figures is adequate, there is nothing similar at the Cumbrian end of the wall (no smells here!). Despite paying almost £16 for three adults and a child (the youngest and his marra, free) there were a total of four papier mache figures and a few reproduction artefacts alongside an “audio-visual” display. We stayed for 10 minutes, mainly to keep out of the rain.

Yet the east coast boasts a fabulous reconstruction of a fort, villas and with modern citizens dressed as our conquerors. How can our children – and we too - distinguish between the many dry-stone walls and the great construction itself unless we know what it was like then?

Despite our encouraging comments about soldiers, swords, bows and helmets, the wall will remain a mystery unless we show them how the might that was Rome might have looked.