A FORMER prisoner's stories brought the years of the Second World War to life for a group of schoolchildren yesterday.
Captured three days before the end of the conflict, Willie Benoit was held prisoner in County Durham for three years and did not return to live in his native Germany.
From Harperley Camp, near Crook, he was sent to work on the land where he met and married a farmer's daughter.
His 1940s tales entertained children from Howden-le-Wear Primary School, whose visit to the camp yesterday was organised by Howden-le-Wear Local History Society, through a project paid for with £1,500 from the National Lottery Home Front Recall fund.
The year six pupils chose the 1940s as this year's topic for study and are collecting memories from grandparents and friends.
At Harperley, they ate a wartime lunch, watched a video made by another former prisoner and visited the camp's huts.
The society has collected information and photographs of Howden during the war and is planning an exhibition on November 19. Visit organiser Joan Potts said: "The children enjoyed the interviews with Willie. It is important that they understand what the war was like."
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