Some local people, who were children at the time of the war, have told us their experiences of everyday life:

• Lots of men had to go off to fight in the armed forces.  It was very hard for children to see their fathers go away from home.
• Everyone, adults and children, had to carry gas masks whenever they went out.  This was because they expected to experience poison gas attacks. 
• All houses had to have big, black curtains up at the windows to make it difficult for enemy bombers to see if they were over a town at night.
• Food had to be rationed as lots of our food came from other countries and the Germans were blowing up the boats carrying the food.  People had to queue up at the shops and everyone had a ration book.
• People had to dig up their gardens and grow vegetables instead of flowers.
• Just as we recycle things now, people recycled things then.  They also saved food waste in bins for feeding pigs.
• Some families had children staying with them that had been evacuated from other parts of the country that were being bombed.

Activity
Imagine you are a child growing up in wartime.  Use the above information to write diary entries for one week in 1940.  Your birthday may be a good place to start!