BONFIRES, fairground caravans and bottles of pop are among the VE Day memories helping to enlighten today's South Lakeland school children about World War Two.

Seventy years ago, pupils from Kendal's Castle Street School captured their experiences of the May 8, 1945 celebrations in a hand-written magazine illustrated with bright, wax crayon drawings.

The sturdy but yellowing pages are stored at the county archives in Kendal, where senior archivist Margaret Owen realised their potential to bring the war to life for 21st century youngsters.

She told the Gazette: "It's in a collection that we have for Castle Street School records, and because I work with primary school children on various things like World War Two, World War One and the Victorians, I was looking around for good WW2 sources. I saw this VE Day magazine mentioned in our catalogue and realised its potential."

Today's primary school pupils are fascinated by details such as the fair visiting Kendal - as it still does in May - high-heeled shoes worn by the 1940s mums, and lilac trees and telegraph wires being singed by bonfires.

As Margaret explained, the magazine gives "a child's eye view" of the festivities. "You get extra information that wouldn't have been in the newspaper because they are little things that mattered to them, like staying up late."

One schoolgirl, Pat Miller recorded that her ‘mammy’ was in the middle of cleaning the living room on VE Day. Daddy came home for two days and they had tinned pears for tea.

Peter Cannon wrote that when their bonfire was burning low they ‘went to the Nags Head Hotel for some pop but the lady who gave us it said we could keep the money’.

Emily Sagar recorded that Kendal Town Hall was lit with coloured fairy lamps, while one child who did not sign his name said he ‘went to bed happy that night and slept well’.

- If you would like to see the magazine, contact Kendal Archive Centre on 01539-713540 or 713539, or email kendal.archives@cumbria.gov.uk