YOUNGSTERS in County Durham are learning how the everyday lives of children their age were affected as the First World War raged in Western Europe a hundred years ago.

As the men of the Durham Light Infantry laid down their lives in the fields of France, families on the Home Front, as well as desperately missing their fathers and sons, had to give a lot more thought to making their meagre supplies last.

Before the age of mod cons and convenience food, meals were not only harder to produce, but the ingredients, as the war dragged on, were increasingly in short supply.

Many agricultural workers were away fighting in the conflict, and merchant ships were under constant threat of being torpedoed – the German U-boat campaign to starve Britain into submission almost succeeded in bringing the country to its knees in 1917.

In sharp contrast, today’s households throw away, on average, 13lb of food a week, more than any other European country, and childhood obesity is at epidemic proportions.

Nine schools across County Durham are about to start exploring the relationship people had with food between 1914 and 1918 as part of The Soil Association’s Food for Life programme.

Project co-ordinator Barbara Chrisp said: “We are delighted to be a part of this project that will teach children about the food issues from 100 years ago, much of which is still pertinent today. We at Food for Life believe it’s really important for children to learn and understand where food comes from and how it gets to our plate.”

The children will be learning how different their lives are from those of their great-great-grandparents.

Nine year-old Joe Burskens, who attends West Cornforth Primary School, near Ferryhill, which did the programme last year, said: “The children learned how to be resourceful and how to bake, preserve and produce food. Everyone loved the homemade biscuits. The experience made us realise how much easier our lives are today.”

The Soil Association project was awarded £57,400 by the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) in 2015 and nine schools in County Durham completed the programme during the last academic year.

Ivor Crowther, head of HLF North-East, said: “Our food heritage is fascinating in that it can reveal a lot about communities through the ages, including the impact of conflicts such as the First World War. We’re pleased to support this project which will enable the future custodians of our heritage to gain a hands-on insight into how our communities lived during this time and just how much things have changed over the past century.”

The project involves working with Broom House Farm, at Witton Gilbert, and Garden Organic’s Heritage Seed Library on a variety of workshops, practical demonstrations and role-playing.

From animal rearing and seed cultivation to savvy storage and shopping techniques, children get hands-on experience of the ways people during the First World War made food go as far as possible.

Memories, traditional recipes and reflections on people’s changing relationship with food are used to create a Food for Life cookbook.

The children also host a stall at Durham City Farmers Market to share their findings and produce they will grow during the project.

The project involves visiting Beamish Museum, near Stanley, to help the pupils understand the conditions by bringing the past to life.

Catherine Rice, the museum’s learning co-ordinator, said: “We’re giving children an understanding of food in 1914. We look at where food comes from and how people managed, grew, acquired and preserved food, and how different it is from today. People didn’t just go to a supermarket to buy it.”

In the museum’s Pit Village, youngsters planted seed in the allotment greenhouse, and took part in a workshop in the pit cottage involving food planning, seasonality of food, food preservation and pickling, making mincemeat, looking at where food comes from, and baking bread in the bread oven.

Children were also given recipes from the period.

Ms Rice said: “The children took part in activities focusing on the First World War, putting together a parcel for a soldier on the front, writing notes and deciding what to put in, such as sweets from the sweet shop.”