Young pupils in Newhall were treated to stirring memories of the Second World War from residents who lived through the six-year conflict - including tales of a daring escape, bomb attacks and rationing.
Staff and pupils at William Allitt School were visited by three residents to hear their wartime stories along with Scott Clayton, from South Derbyshire District Council, who is running a project called Thriving Communities centred on communities working together and sharing ideas on improving their area.
Residents Margret, Michael and Joan shared their own experiences of being children of the war, showing memorabilia and discussing the importance of Remembrance Day with pupils.
A spokesman for the school said: "Everyone had such a lovely afternoon and staff, students and the visitors all said how much they enjoyed it.
"The school has been studying various things in their lessons relating to the war and were involved in a display in the school library where they hand-made poppies and wrote micro-poems on each one – creating a wonderful piece of visual work with the school librarian.
"The visitors Margret, Michael and Joan also met our lovely kitchen staff and enjoyed a meal of fish and chips before leaving the school."
Michael told how he was born in rural France just before the Second World War and was just six months old when the Germans entered France and occupied villages.
The now 78-year-old went on the run with his family to try to get a passage to Britain and then travelled to Spain but could not find a boat.
They travelled back to France and after four weeks managed to get on a military ship in Marseille. He lived in London throughout the rest of the war and at the age of four saw a V1 rocket soar across the sky before landing further down the street destroying houses.
Margret remembers having to take a gas mask with her everywhere and had to regularly practice what to do in the event of an air raid.
The 85-year-old said: "Our house was hit directly by a bomb in the war, we survived it and had to live in the local bomb shelter for three months until they found us a house.
"My father died when I was nine months old and my mum had to re-marry. Mum had to work in the munitions factory during the war.
"We lived on rations getting two eggs, four ounces of sugar and one shilling and sixpence worth of meat a month and we had to queue for our food. I had never seen a banana before and when they arrived we did not know what to do in terms of peeling and eating them.
"All our food was preserved as so little food came into the country at that time and we used to swap rations with neighbours to get variety."
