The Forward
GRANDMOTHER Josie Newman regularly visits schools to talk about what life was like for her as a young girl growing up in Perry Common during the Second World War.
She visited St Nicholas Primary School, Sutton Coldfield, to talk to a group of year six pupils who had already covered World War Two in their curriculum and wanted to know more about what life was really like at the time. Josie was almost ten years old when the war broke out and was 15 when it ended. She lived with her parents and seven younger siblings in a modest house with its own bomb shelter at the bottom of the garden.
Josie shared personal experiences with the pupils about what life was like for her and her family, how they lived, what they ate, how they dressed and what they did for entertainment. She also explained to the pupils what ration books were, handing out sample rations of butter, bacon, cheese, eggs and sweets for them to get a real feel for how much food a family had to survive on. She also explained what clothing coupons were.
Over the years Josie has collected a range of war memorabilia such as gas masks, identity cards, ration books, stamps, coupons, helmets, sirens, old coins and many old photographs and books of interest. She finished the lecture by asking all the pupils to lie on a table with their eyes closed, while she played a tape of a siren, which gave the pupils a feel of what it sounded like, and what other noises they would have heard such as bombs dropping, gunshots and emergency service vehicles. Josie had an attentive audience, with the pupils listening hard, asking lots of questions, and sharing their own views about what they had learned at school and through their own research.
