I like it Vic too. Although... (you know what I'm going to suggest!)... how about chopping it off just under the '39 - '45? i find the image splits in 2 due to the dark band and this seems to help hold it together more.
yeah I think I could work with that, again I had considered cropping the bottom but not that high just up to the first step but you crop works. I might have to nick a little from the right hand side though too to compensate.
why not try and bring some of the detail out on the shaded area ... there looks like there is some text in there that i cant quite make out ... but that could just be my laptop screen ??