Behind the exhibition

How this exhibition was made

How we researched Henry's story, what is real and what is imagined, and where we used AI.

Our promise

Henry's record comes first. Every fact about Henry comes from his service and casualty records, his battalions' war diaries and histories, or the family's own papers, and its source is given. Where we are not sure, we say so.

Anything imagined is always marked. It never adds to, or changes, what the records say happened to him.

How we researched it

The family's papers. We began with Angela Wright's written memories of her grandfather, Memories of Grandad, and the family's photographs.
His records. Henry's service and casualty records, transcribed and summarised for the family by The Rifles Berkshire and Wiltshire Museum, gave the dates and places of his war: France in 1915, the 1st Somersets, his wounds on 1 July 1916, the 1st Wiltshires, and his capture in March 1918.
Where his battalions were. We followed the 1st Somerset Light Infantry and 1st Wiltshire Regiment through their war diaries and regimental histories, so each scene sits where Henry's battalion actually was on that date.
What life was like. For daily life, food, kit and conditions, we used museums and archives, chiefly the Imperial War Museums, the National Army Museum and The National Archives, and the words of men who were there.
The places today. In August 2026 the family visited the Somme, Vimy, Lorette and Ypres, and the photographs from that trip appear in the last chapter.

Every source is listed, with where it is used, on the Sources and credits page.

The labels

Each image, story, document and voice carries one of these labels.

Genuine material from the time: records, maps, photographs and objects held by archives and museums.
From the family's own papers, photographs and memories.
Real, but not Henry himself: men of his battalions, or men just like him.
Facts about a place, then or now.
Imagined, using AI, from the records. Always marked, and never presented as fact.

Where we used AI

The family has no letters or diary of Henry's, and he did not talk about the war. To help visitors feel close to him, we imagined what he might have written. This is the only place the exhibition speaks in his voice, and it is always marked.

Henry's Reflections: an imagined journal

Short journal entries, written with the help of an AI model (Claude, made by Anthropic), in the voice of a Somerset farm hand of his time. Each entry is drawn from his record, his battalion's history on that date, and the family's memories of him. Under every entry, What's real in this entry shows which details come from his record, which from history, which are typical of the time, and which are imagined.

Every entry carries the note “AI imagined journal”. The thoughts and feelings in it are ours, imagined for him, not his.

Henry's voice

Some entries can be heard read aloud. The voice is not Henry's, and it is not a copy of anyone's. It is a synthetic voice, made with ElevenLabs, chosen to sound like a Somerset man of his generation. Nothing plays by itself, and every recording can be read as text instead.

The German soldiers' diaries

Two short diaries give the view from the other side of the wire, on 1 July 1916 and in March 1918. The soldiers are invented, not real people. Their diaries are drawn from their regiments' published histories and German and British accounts, and are marked as imagined. They are not read aloud, so they are never mistaken for Henry.

Help with research and building

The exhibition and its visitor experience were designed by Graeme Wright. Claude was used to code the website to that design, and to help search and summarise sources and draft the historical text. The family reviewed what was written, and every fact is linked to its source so that anyone can check it.

What AI was not used for

No photographs, documents or records were made or changed by AI. Old photographs are not colourised or “restored”.
No quotation from a real person was invented. Real people's words are quoted from their sources.
Nothing imagined is presented as part of Henry's record.

If you are researching Henry or his battalions, please cite the records and sources, not the imagined journal.

Telling a hard story with care

Henry's war included the first day of the Somme, the loss of friends, gas and capture. Chapters that describe wounds and death begin with a short content note, with the choice to read a summary or skip ahead. The exhibition remembers the dead of every nation, and shows the German side in their own words where we could.

Accessibility

The exhibition is built to meet the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 at level AA. Under Settings you can change the text size, choose a dyslexia-friendly font, change the page tint and line spacing, and reduce motion. Games and activities are optional, each with a clear Skip button. Narrated pages can always be read as typed text.

In October 2026 every page and scene was tested with automated accessibility checks, in light and dark mode, at desktop and phone sizes, with no failures found. We also checked that pages reflow at 320 pixels wide, that wider text spacing does not hide content, and that keyboard focus is always visible.

Automated checks cannot find every problem. We know of these limitations:

Photographs from the Imperial War Museums are shown from the museum's website, so they need an internet connection.
Full testing with screen readers is still to do.

If anything gets in your way, please email hello@buildnewhabits.co.uk, and we will fix it.

Privacy

There are no adverts, no tracking and no accounts. Your settings, and how far you have got, are saved only on your own device, in your browser, and are never sent anywhere. The fonts are loaded from Google Fonts, and the Imperial War Museums photographs from the museum's website, so those services see that a page was visited, as they would for any website.

Photographs of living family members are only included with their agreement.