SAFC Academy players use Pals Battalions project to support local community ahead of Armistice Day

1 year ago

SAFC's Under 12s team have been supporting groups in the local community as part of the Premier League's Christmas Truce project. Head of Education Don Peattie explains what the boys have been doing.

Transcript

00:00OK then, Don, if you can tell me about the project the kids have been doing, please.

00:04Yeah, this year's Christmas Tues project has a theme around PALS battalions,

00:08which were particularly prevalent in the north of the country.

00:13At the start of the First World War, I think the government realised that Britain had a fairly small army

00:18comparative to other European countries. We were essentially a naval force, being a maritime nation,

00:23so they went on a recruitment drive. I think people would be quite familiar with Lloyd Kitchen

00:28as opposed to pointing the finger, we need you, your country needs you.

00:32So our boys were tasked with coming up with some ideas around designing their own battalions posters,

00:38and in fact coming up with their own PALS battalions.

00:41So they'd been very creative around designing PALS battalion posters,

00:46and one or two of them had an idea about inviting different organisations to become our PALS

00:50and sign up to our PALS battalion. We decided to invite Young Asian Voices based in Hendon

00:56to become a part of our PALS battalion.

00:59I understand the Salvation Army's been involved in this project as well?

01:02Yeah, because one of the missions of our PALS battalion was obviously, the lads,

01:07we don't want them to go off and fight in a war, a war as horrible, as disastrous consequences.

01:12So we decided that one of our missions would be to support those most in need,

01:16and particularly the most vulnerable in society, and the elderly.

01:20So we did link in with the Salvation Army, and they gave us an invite to come across

01:25and talk to their elderly members of the Salvation Army in Millfield about the project.

01:32One of the lads read out a poem, one of the lads read out a letter from home,

01:36from the trenches he imagined, or they imagined what it was like,

01:39the horrible conditions, cold, wet, damp, dead bodies,

01:44potentially lying beside them in the trenches, sickness, illness, etc, etc.

01:51So the lads spoke to the elderly members of the Salvation Army about this,

01:56and they also enacted a play, a short play.

01:58We got them to imagine what the actual Christmas truce was like, and how it would have come about.

02:02So we set up a platform on the stage in the Salvation Army.

02:07We had the Germans on one side, the British on the other side, and no man's land in the middle.

02:11And we got them just to imagine what the dialogue would have been,

02:14and how the situation arose, where hostilities or the fighting stopped for a period of time on Christmas Day.

02:21I know the lads do a project linked to World War I every year.

02:25How important is it that this generation do remember the sacrifices that that generation made?

02:29It's massively important. That's how we're able to live as we are today.

02:32We have our freedoms, we live in a democracy, a democratic society.

02:37It's harder every year, to be honest, as the years go by and younger people come along,

02:44and they can't quite remember or are not too familiar with World War I and the story around World War I.

02:50But it is massive. It's a huge part of our history.

SAFC Academy players use Pals Battalions project to support local community ahead of Armistice Day

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