Culture And Memory

Children of World War Two

The project will have two outcomes: to collect oral histories from people who were children in WW2 and to dramatise them with young people as a series of short audio dramas. Life for children in Dorset during the war was extraordinary, but their experiences are under-recorded. 1944: American troops in their tens of thousands arrive to prepare for D-Day. Tanks and Army vehicles fill every tree-lined street. Commandos scale cliffs by night and sleep in family homes by day. Working with young people from deprived areas, the project team will find people who were children in the war years and record their stories for the Dorset History Centre oral archive. This archive material will then be used to make a series of radio dramas for community radio, podcasts and displays. Installed as part of a Nothe Fort exhibition, today's children will be the dramatised voices of young people during WW2.