A Step Into The Past - WW2

On the 12th January, we had a visit from 3 people from Fairlop to talk to us about their and other peoples experiences during WW2. The first person was a man called David Martin, who is the worlds expert on Fairlop Waters. He showed us a model Spitfire which he owned, it was one of his two toys during the war. Here is a picture of the model of it:

He showed us a few maps of the surrounding area from the past. See if you can spot John Bramston:

In the war there was there was 4 types of British planes. The Lancaster Bomber, The Spitfire, The Hurricane and the Typhoons. The German had lots of planes but the Spitfires enemy was the Luftwaffe.  Germans also used a V1 which was quite slow and was nicknamed the 'doodlebug' by the children around in the time. Whereas they had a V2 which was fast and quick and faster than the speed of sound so you couldn't hear it.

After that our 2nd visitor came into our class. She was born in 1943, 2 years before the war ended in 1945.

She told us a lot about food rationing, from when she was young. Because of the loss of crops they had to ration food for everyone to be fed. Here is a picture of a ration book. 

Also to be able to purchase your food you used tokens, even if all you wanted was some tea! Take a look at this. You were only given this amount of food every week.

The lady showed us some great artifacts such as a piece of a spitfire found in Belgium. This was an actual spitfire piece from the war! Sadly the driver of the spitfire died, but he fought for his country well. 

Some people were given a medal after they fought for their country, and we got to see what they looked like. Some of us even got to try them on!

Then our final visitor came in, he was called Derek. In those days they would have gas attacks by the Germans so they had a special piece of equipment called the Gas Mask.

Even though it may look scary it saved many people's lives. The mask does not let any gases from the outside world whilst still letting you have oxygen. When children were being transported from their home to the countryside they had to carry a box which contained their gas mask.

Imagine carrying a heavy box whilst knowing that you are going to leave your family and you may never see them again . Derek shared some of his childhood experiences with us and made us think about what time was like back in the War (even though some of his experiences were quite funny). Thank you for everyone that came to talk to Year 6.