The National Archives at Kew

I had my first day out at the National Archives in Kew yesterday. They're housed in a vast modern building, with extremely friendly staff, all astonishingly abuzz with people. Parties of tiny schoolchildren were being whisked somehow into the wonders of textual research, while a lot of old couples seemed to be researching the recesses of their memories.
I was on the track of J.S.Haldane's wartime experiences, his visit to the trenches in 1915. A rather touching diary by Professor Hubert Baker had some intimate details. How wonderful that biographers have such accomplices, penning firsthand accounts from wartime cross-channel ferries.
I had hoped for hands-on Churchill and Kitchener material, though predictably you are relegated to microfiche machines for those. A good swathe of correspondence from bridagier generals though, as they sorted out the facts of the battles at Ypres between themselves.
I'm on track with this biography now, my home archives sitting in some semblance of order. It's fun burrowing away through archives to discover the sounds, smells and emotions of a century ago.