From the outbreak of war in September 1939, the lives of us children in Whittington Village, Staffs, began to change - for the better ! Our farming village had about 900 people - and most of us knew each other at least a bit. The village both enclosed farms and was surrounded by farms. There was a sandstone church, St Giles, a chapel, about six shops, three pubs, a blacksmiths forge and the corner Police House where the imposing Sgt Woodward and his bicycle, lived and reigned. In the war there were three cars in the village, seldom used as any journey not for the war effort was forbidden. There was no bus to the village, people walked or went by bike. The nearest town, Lichfield, was 3 miles away.

Steadily, the men of the village went away to the War, farm workers grew less and less and apart from a few "Landgirls" who came in to help, farmers in Whittington became desperate for labour to produce the extra food needed to feed the population. Because of this - for six years, the village became "Ours". "We" were the children of the village.

Before the War,farmers would only reluctantly tolerate us anywhere near their farms, but everything changed when the men went away. We were suddenly welcomed with smiling faces on any farm if we would only help out a bit. Feeding animals, mucking-out, milking, driving horses and drays, stacking hay, and all manner of tough but interesting work waited for us any day we chose. Being in some cases the children of departed farm workers, many of us knew what to do and how to do it - and those of us who didn't know, learned quickly. Except for the traditional Autumn potato picking we were not normally paid with money. Instead, eggs, milk and farm produce were given to us. This was very welcome at home. In any case we were very happy to "do our bit" for the War, whether we got anything or not.

We were now considered more as 'helpers' who were contributing, rather than 'just children', and we were a bit proud about this, feeling ourselves better off than those children who had to live in a town. Our lives became fuller. We were greeted cheerfully by name by farmers when we saw them at church or shops, and in our spare time we were trusted to roam in fields around the village since it was known that we could be trusted to avoid standing crops, would close all gates and not scare grazing animals.

It was an idyllic life for us children, almost free from parental control, treated like little adults by the farmers and roaming at will over the countryside. We lived closer to nature than children today can possibly imagine. Swimming naked in country canals and brooks, fishing, sitting in the Croft digging up and eating "pignuts" from under the turf, collecting blackberries, and field-mushrooms (at 5 o'clock on a late-summer morning), finding the biggest chestnuts to eat and the hardest conkers to play with in autumn, staying out playing until the Double Summertime daylight ended at 11pm in summer, - our life was near perfect.

Tough, adventurous, hard-working, capable and self-reliant, we "War Children" in Whittington lived a wonderful life, the memories of which I treasure to this day.

Editor's Note: This piece by Patrick Hogan was captured from the internet in 2003. We have been unable to make contact to ask his permission to reproduce this piece; we hope he is not unhappy we have included his wonderfully evocative word picture in the Whittington History website. .