On the 8th November 2012 Year 6 went to Lincolnfield Children’s Centre for the day. We first went into this 1940’s classroom and sat down at the old-fashioned desks, waiting for something to happen. Then a lady walked in dressed as a 1940’s teacher, talking to us about having to have identity cards and ration books.
Then we split up in to 2 groups to do activities!
My group and I first went into a building that had been made to look like a war time house. We were told how they did things and how children helped their parents. They even talked about black out times and what they had to do, and because of the black out lots of people were killed in road accidents because they couldn’t see where they were going!! I found it quite interesting to learn about how much more the children had to work in those times.
Afterwards, we swapped with the other group and went in a jeep that was used in the war! I was surprised it actually still worked after about 70 years! It was amazing! They took us to a very dark room that they said was a time machine and that we were going back to 1940 when the Blitz started. (They actually made it quite realistic.)
We looked through the window and saw that a bomb had crashed through the barn roof but had not exploded! I really didn’t expect the bombs to look like that. It was great to see what a real bomb actually looked like. Then out of nowhere, an air-raid siren went off. I was terrified! The guides rushed us into what would look like a public air-raid shelter. It was very realistic! The guides were telling us how sometimes people would have to stay here for hours, not knowing what was happening on the streets. If we were school children in that time we would have had to brought our school books down there and carry on working if we had enough light! But who could work with rats crawling around and loud bombs dropping on top?
Finally we heard the all-clear siren and came out to find a man in uniform who started to talk to us about what damage was done to the famous buildings in London. Did you know that st Paul’s Cathedral had a bomb right through the middle of the building but it didn’t fall down? Builders built it up and if you went there today you would never know.
We then went back in the jeep and the guides made us sing a war song. We sang ‘Run Rabbit’! We heard from a gentleman who had actually fought in the war. It was interesting to hear the story from someone who had experienced it. We even got to hold his gun! Don’t worry, it didn’t have any bullets in it!