CHILDREN from Grasmere Primary School transported a large audience at the village's St Oswald's Parish Church back to the trenches of the Western Front when they performed a play called The Christmas Truce.
Written by head teacher Jo Goode from the diaries and letters of soldiers, contemporary poetry and the children’s ideas, the performance moved some of the audience to tears, particularly when children prayed for their daddies’ safety, and expressed their incredulity that anyone could fight on Christmas Day.
The power of the Christmas message of love and forgiveness battled with the horror of the war, through the words of war poets Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon and Edmund Blunden interspersed with original and traditional music. The church was full of sandbags and the thunder of cannons echoed around the building.
"Seeing this story through children’s eyes, and hearing it portrayed by such young voices, brought home the futility of war in a peculiarly heart-breaking way," said Ms Goode, who descried the who production as "hautingly beautiful".
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