A NEW project will be launched this month to explore how York women and children dealt with the First World War.

The Home Front Project will feature in the Clements Hall Local History Group event on Friday, January 27, and will look at how women worked on munitions, how Scarcroft schoolchildren got involved in the war, and what made some men refuse to fight.

Dick Hunter will present the archives of Scarcroft School to show how children performed Christmas playlets to raise funds for Old Boys serving with the colours, cookery demonstrations aimed at pupils’ parents and new allotments on Scarcroft Green.

Research on local conscientious objectors will be presented by Anne Houson, looking at some who went to prison, and who came from a range of diverse religious and political viewpoints.

The group will also perform a song written by a local munitions worker in Bishophill, which group members previously sang at the York Explore Archives event in November. The song, A Munition Dirge, was found in the Vickers Instruments Archive at the Borthwick Institute for Archives at the University of York.

The talk will take place at 7.30pm on Friday, January 27, at Clements Hall. Membership of the History Group costs £5 for the year, which gives reduced entry £1 to talks. Non-members are also welcome, at a cost of £3 on the door.