Children supplying the army in WW2

In the summer of 1943 the Derby depot had found itself unable to deal with the volume of material it was receiving and so Brigadier Robinson had the imaginative idea of seeing if school children on their summer holidays would help.

The Derby Evening Telegraph ran an article on how these school children helped to prepare for the invasion. What shone out from this was the enthusiasm and skill of all concerned including the teachers. One girl took on the challenge of sorting a cupboard full of 30,000 boxes by size. Another group packed in three hours what their army supervisor had thought would take days. The children didn’t complain of boredom since it was an activity quite different from their daily round.

It wasn’t just in the Midlands. The Twickenham times ran this story.

Pupils of Twickenham County School for Girls and Hampton Grammar School have shown a fine sense of patriotism by giving up their Easter holiday to do war work…boys and girls aged from 14 to 16, are working morning and afternoon for the Army in packing spare parts for tanks and other Army Vehicles. …some scholars pack the spares into cartons while others seal, label and pack the cartons into boxes ready for shipment.

Elsewhere it was reported that pupils from Eton had also leant a hand at the Feltham Depot.