Children Of The Great War Part 1

At the outbreak of war, many people across England didn't really want to go to war. Men thought of being heroes of war but not of the horrors war entailed. Women didn't want to have to send their husbands and sons off to war. Yet there was some that were looking forward to war, even if they didn't really understand what war was... and that was children.

For months before the outbreak of war, children had been reading and listening to adults about the pros and cons of war and if it was really going to take place. But what was life really like for children of the First World war ... In this series I intend to find out.

When war broke out, factories up and down the country were needed to make things for the war from uniform to munitions. Across England, the government was urging people to help with the war effort and this included factories as well. This meant that factories were no longer able to make children's toys. Before the outbreak of war, toys would more often than not have a clockwork mechanism and would be made from cloth, wood, leather, metal or china. However, soon after the outbreak of war, toys became harder to find, with household items being recycled to make home-made toys. Toys that children already had were prize possessions and highly sought after. The favourites were dolly's, teddy bears, large hoops, blow football, marbles and model sailing boats complete with string to guide them. Toys did however take a more wartime theme with patriotic uniforms for teddy bears, a trench football game and even Kill Kiel game, where the objective is to sink the German submarines. 

Many children also liked to read. Pre-war favourites included The Secret Garden and The Railway Children. The rainbow and Suzie Sunshine was also favourites to keep children entertained whilst Boys Own Annual and Penny War Weekly inspired boys with their heroic wartime stories and adventures, with them displaying the enemy as Germans. 

Sometimes, if parents could afford it, children could look forward to days out. Music halls regularly staged fund-raising events to help the war effort. Another popular past time was to go to the cinema - although they were very different to what they are today. They were in black and white and had no sound, so somebody would play appropriate music on a piano. Charlie Chaplin was the main star children wanted to watch but cinemas also showed newsreels so that people could keep up to date with the news. 

For children, whose parents couldn't afford to do these things, many of them would go out in the street and play with the friends with popular games being skipping, hopscotch and football. For the children of the Great War, life wasn't all doom and gloom, it was very much still an adventure but things were changing and new challenges faced families ...