Our arrival at Murton Park.
Neville Chamberlain gives the chilling news on the radio that Britain is at war with Germany.
The evacuees are told about what life would be like away from home - very serious faces.
An example of weekly rations.
'Mrs G' explains that it wasn't all doom and gloom. There was sometimes even a change to dance the latest dance crazes, like 'the jitterbug'!
'Mr T', our ARP (air raid precautions) warden arrived to give a stern talk (with lots of jokes included to lighten the mood) about the dangers of the German bombings.
The children were happily enjoying their hot chocolate and biscuit but reminded if the whistle blew they had to sit up and pay careful attention.....
....which they did wonderfully!
Mr T raised morale with some well needed humour.....
.....although it was soon time to be serious again as he warned us of the threat of German gas attacks. It was time for our gas mask drill. (Note: he also warned us never to wear an original gas mask due to the asbestos contained in the mask)
Everyone managed to get their replica masks on safely within the allocated 20 seconds. Well done!
Next we went outside for an air-raid drill. It was pretty cramped in the shelter considering people used to have stay in them for up to eight hours at a time!
We got to work with a number of useful household duties, like making butter (as the weekly ration was very small)....
....baking flapjack....
.... and sewing rugs for the fireplace.
We needed to make sure all of the widows had tape on to protect us from glass in the event of a bomb blast.
The children put on a brave face, despite, I am sure, feeling nervous about potential air raids from the Luftwaffe!
Then it was back to other household chores as part of our war effort. Like washing clothes with the wringer mangle, dolly tub and washboards.
Due to the petrol rationing, many people began using horses more readily so it was essential to clean and condition the leather horse tack.
Putting on extra tape to meet the ARP officer's approval and ensure safety.
As the evacuees were only given one spare pair of clothes it was important to keep them cleaned and ironed, using an iron heated above the fire.
After a busy morning of work and safety preparations, it was time for a well-earned lunch break. After our ration books had all been punched we were ready to eat (hats off to parents for providing some brilliantly period-appropriate lunches and packaging!).
Two hungry evacuees ready to tuck into their authentic lunch boxes.
Time for a play outside until..........AIR RAID SIREN!!
Quickly (but without running unless you wanted to face the wrath of Mr T!) we made our way to the air raid shelters and bunkers.
Relieved to be safe.
Although it soon dawned on the group that their playtime was over! Back to the 'reality' of wartime Britain...
Mr T explaining how propaganda was used in some of the posters. I won't upset you by repeating what he said about the dog in the picture though!
The children were told about the life of an ARP warden, which started off as being mostly about darts and dominoes but eventually became a crucial part of saving lives and protecting people during The Blitz.
Very serious rug weaving.
A happy horse tack cleaning session.
After their instruction from our ARP warden, the newly-recruited 'Fire Guard', which we learnt were often children, were given the task of putting out the fire from an incendiary bomb. The bin lids were often used to smother the flames too. The photo above looks so authentic that I think Mr Sturgess may have found himself a new screen saver for the classroom!
Fire out - good work from the 'Fire Guard'.
Extremely enthusiastic window taping.
After greasing the tin, Mrs G explained that the liberal use of butter meant we had used up a week's worth of butter rations!
The rugs were starting to take shape, kind of.
More smiles! This time for cleaning the horses' tack.
Aaaaaargh! Fire!
Good job team!
The 'F' on the helmets doesn't stand for 'friendly' although that would apply here. Mr T explained that the letters on the helmet described the job. F for fireguard, W for ARP warden, P for police, D for doctor. The children kindly suggested that teachers should get a T helmet but Mr T explained they weren't important enough!!
This was a fantastic trip and as you can see from the smiles above, we all had an enjoyable time whilst learning very much about a serious and dangerous time in our History. Thank you very much to all the parents who helped by providing such fantastic period clothes and sandwiches - it all added to the authenticity of the 'living history' experience. I will also add that I was incredibly proud of the behaviour on today's trip which was commended by both the staff members who worked with Class 4 today.
