IWM Duxford takes visitors on trip back to World War Two Christmas

VISITORS were taken on a trip back to Christmas during the Second World War at IWM Duxford last week.

Guests were welcomed to a cosy wartime sitting room cheerfully decorated for the festive season and met a 1940s housewife who chatted to them about her plans for Christmas on the Home Front as the strains of 1940s Christmas songs came from the wireless.

The wartime recipe Christmas cake had been lovingly prepared in the 1940s kitchen and the Anderson Shelter, complete with Dig for Victory allotment, was looking its seasonal best.

Visitors saw and played with a wide range of fun wartime toys. They then made colourful paper chains to decorate their own homes and made wartime toys using traditional pegs to make Spitfires or butterflies.

A spokeman from the museum said: “Monica Askay, cook and food historian, showed visitors what a wartime Christmas dinner would have looked like.

“There were wartime recipe mince pies and Christmas cake to try – and very tasty they were too.

“Everyone had a very Merry Make Do and Mend Christmas!”