TV SOAP actress Jane Rossington -- Jill Richardson in Crossroads -- rolled back the years when she officially opened a 1940s and 50s 'living museum' at the Royal British Legion's Dunkirk Memorial House in Bishops Lydeard.
The Reminiscence Room, in the Poppy Lounge, features furniture and everyday items from and after the war years as part of a Somerset Partnership project.
Organisers, who dressed in period clothes for the event, hope trips down memory lane will help people with Alzheimer's, amnesia and dementia.
The opening also featured a drama of eight actors called 'Good Companions' acting out their lives in the 1950s, a street party and a parade of vintage vehicles.
Occupational therapist Fiona Mahoney said: "The room will enable people to step back in time, focusing on an area in their life which, perhaps, made them feel happy and it might give them a boost."
Fiona and staff nurse Jacqui Cridge were among the first in the country to pilot reminiscence therapy -- in 1999 they opened a pioneering reminiscence room at Bridgwater.
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