English children’s work during the second world war – in pictures

New book looks at young people's contribution to the war effort
  
  


You can help your country: Ministry of Information poster
Ministry of Information poster

Susan Sawtell, seven in 1939, remembers: “The school grounds were dug up and we had little plots of land, ‘digging for victory.’ We knitted scarves, adopted a British prisoner of war in Germany and sent him Red Cross parcels and wrote to him. We collected waste paper and scrap metal.” Photograph: Crown
You can help your country: Lord Wandsworth College boys pulling a haywagon
Lord Wandsworth College boys pulling a hay wagon Photograph: Lord Wandsworth College
You can help your country: Picking carrots in Cheltenham
Boys harvesting carrots at Cheltenham College, Gloucestershire Photograph: Cheltenham College Archives
You can help your country: Students feeding hens, 1941
Students feeding hens, 1941 Photograph: Old Rendcombian Society
You can help your country: A mars bar advert from the second World War
A wartime Mars Bar advertisement encouraging children’s involvement in the war effort Photograph: Mars, Inc
You can help your country: Young people sorting the mail, 1942
But young people's war work wasn't just about digging for victory. This group is helping to sort the mail. Photograph: Royal Mail Group Ltd 2010, courtesy of The British Postal Museum & Archive
You can help your country: Students at Oundle School during the second World War
Students at Oundle School carry out government commissioned work by using an oxy-acetylene torch to cut holes in an artesian well shaft. Many schools helped armaments companies, with pupils producing radio components, shell casings, firing pins for rifles and boxes for hand grenades. Photograph: Wolf Suschitzky and courtesy of Oundle School Archive
You can help your country: A second World War evacuation poster
A second world war evacuation poster says "You ought to be out of London". But thousands of young people who weren't billeted to rural families played important roles on the home front ... Photograph: Ahn Na Brodie/Crown
You can help your country: Boy scouts collecting waste paper during the second World War
... including collecting waste paper, like these Scouts ... Photograph: The Scout Association
You can help your country: Young people in a fire-fighting squad
... or as members of a fire-fighting squad. Photograph: Pam Weatherley/St George's VA school
 

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