Brothers in Arms: Teaching the important role of the Indian Army and the West Indies Regiment in WWI

Getting young children to fully comprehend war isn’t easy, but one school has found creative ways to teach that British history belongs to all of us, as Lloyd Burgess discovers...

The last thing you expect to hear on arrival at a primary school is the sound of mortar fire. While many teachers might refer to their classroom as a war zone, you’d hope that’s just a metaphor. Not today, however. Today, that’s clearly the sound of explosives and gunfire.

Colvestone Primary in Hackney is a one-storey, Gothic building erected as a church school in 1862. There’s an olde world feel to the hall’s ogival windows and white-painted roof beams, but the energy of the children rehearsing for today’s show – a World War One performance that’s the culmination of their term’s work – brings the past fully into the present. It also explains the, thankfully pre-recorded, soundtrack of motar shells.

The hall walls feature displays of a broad and diverse world history, with ancient civilisations, including the Aztecs, Chinese dynasties and Egyptian kings. Through the colourful corridors, up the stairs and into the classrooms, pharaohs give way to watercolour poppies as the displays switch to this term’s focus, the First World War. But the children’s studies have not been limited to the more parochial themes that sometimes dominate lessons on the conflict. This close-knit school proudly serves a socially diverse, multicultural community, and wanted to explore the Great War from a different perspective. It found the perfect partner in Hackney Music Development Trust, and its Trench Brothers project.

Unto the breach

Trench Brothers focuses on the Indian Army and the West Indies Regiment that fought in the war, but which are often marginalised by mainstream historical coverage. “The project has several goals, one of which is to commemorate the soldiers who rarely get acknowledged,” says HMDT creative director, Tertia Sefton-Green. “It’s not just about being in the front line, it’s also about doing the jobs that enable those on the front line to fight. We want the war to be meaningful to everybody. Quite often it’s seen as a white man’s war, which it wasn’t. We want everyone to feel like it’s part of their heritage.”

In the classroom, teachers Anna Yates, Year 5, and Faharna Patel, Year 6, were given an education pack to plan how they would teach the project, but added to it with things the children enjoyed. “We were reading War Horse, and they were really interested, so we put in more about the role of animals,” says Anna. “It’s been really great because it gave us the overview which we’ve managed to differentiate and scaffold and teach in our own way.”

Tertia and her team organised workshops for the children throughout the term, including a puppet-making day, so each child had his or her own puppet soldier to use in the show, an interpreter session with an actor in character as an Indian soldier, and artefact-handling with the National Army Museum. The children were also given a real-life soldier to research, and were able to read some of the letters sent between him and his family back home. They then got to write their own letters and diary entries based on what they had learnt, which formed the basis of the lyrics for one of the songs that will be performed in the show. “When they saw their writing in the song, even if it was just a few words, it meant so much to them,” says Faharna. “It was a sort of recognition, so they could say ‘oh, my writing is good’, and they could understand writing for a purpose. Initially they just wanted to know who won the war, whereas now they appreciate the loss on a wider scale, the impact it had on women, children and the whole world.”

At a time when immigration is a near-constant talking point, Trench Brothers is showcasing the roles that ethnic minorities have in shaping this country, as well as global history. It’s giving a voice to a marginalised section of those who fought in the Great War, and teaching the children about acceptance and brotherhood. “The project has really helped us to think about what being British means, and that it doesn’t really matter where you’re from, it’s about what you’re fighting for,” says Anna. “It’s taught the children about friendship, supporting others and the whole idea of brotherhood and what that means. We tried to make it clear that this isn’t just a white British story, that it affected people everywhere.”

On with the show

With the post-lunchtime rush in full effect, energetic children begin to fill the hall. The stage is set, with images from inside the trenches. The school’s youngest students come in to watch the performance, appropriately organised, rank and file. Proud parents take their seats. Then comes the mortar fire, and the show begins.

The children creep out into the trenches, puppets in hand, which are lovingly decorated in the military garb of either the Indian Army or the West Indies Regiment. A piano plays, the children, led by performers Richard Sumitro and Cleveland Watkiss, begin to sing. The songs are proud, passionate, with an air of foreboding tragedy that’s made all the more powerful by these young children standing in stead of the fallen soldiers.

Richard, playing an Indian soldier, sings about his friend’s tragic death with a lament that pulls no punches for the younger audience and cast: “He lost his legs, he lost all hope, and then he lost his life.” The horror, the melancholy, and the longing for home, is shining through the performance. When student, Julian, playing a British officer, delivers his line, “all right boys, over the top,” it’s clear that this is the end. And as one by one the children lay their soldier puppets on a bed of poppies, you feel for every single one of them. The show finishes on a final song, with a chorus line of “Trench brothers together, one weapon, one gun.” Highlighting the themes of brotherhood, acceptance and togetherness.

“The reality of the war probably doesn’t make sense until they do the performance. In the performance we’ve had death, shelling, guns, and I think that it really starts to resonate,” says Tertia. “We’re trying to bring it to life, we’re trying to find a way of empathising so it actually makes sense because it was a very difficult concept for all of us.”

Over the course of the term, headteacher Caroline King says that the effect that this project has had on the children has been massive. “We’ve seen a huge difference in how they receive each other. Because they’re talking about people’s feelings, they’re becoming more in touch with their own feelings. So they’ve been a lot more sensitive, and more able to engage with their own emotions and those of the children around them. It’s given them great sensitivity and awareness of others.”

Global conflict

The Trench Brothers project has not only taught children about the the history of these soldiers, but has introduced them to various music styles, song composition and other creative endeavours.

  • “The Indian Army was absolutely paramount,” says Tertia. “But it’s a little-known fact that the British West Indies Regiment were not allowed to fight. We were particularly struck by the importance of the what they did behind the scenes.”

  • Tertia hopes that in 2018 they can find the funding to do a large-scale production of Trench Brothers.

  • The project has been to 50 schools so far, so they’ve created 50 new pieces of music with the letter songs, and made around 4,500 puppets.

  • Six different composers worked on the project, using a range of genres relevant to the subject matter. One composer studies Hindustani music and she taught the children the Indian music scale. Julian Joseph is a jazz composer but he’s interested in a range of styles, so there’s some ragtime, and a bit of music hall. The show includes a version of It’s a Long Way to Tipperary that’s played with tabla and sitar, and the words are changed to It’s a Long Way to Rawalpindi

Further information

Find out more about Hackney Music Development Trust at hmdt.org.uk, and click on the Trench Brothers link for excellent resources on the role of the Indian Army and West Indies Regiment in World War I, as well as lessons and activities for all subjects.