Forties Child

Replay

From the collection of

MACE is the strategic lead organisation for screen heritage for the East and West Midlands regions. An independent charity based at University of Lincoln, MACE preserves and makes accessible a collection of more than 100,000 historic moving images representative of the diverse cultures and histories of communities throughout the heart of England from the Lincolnshire coast to the Welsh border.

Forties Child (ATV Today)

Media Archive for Central England
Cannock
1980-06-09
Sound
4m

For Tom Wakefield the pit village of Chadsmoor provided more than a birthplace, it was inspiration amongst the slag heaps.

With its cramped rows of houses contrasting with the green spaces of the nearby Cannock Chase, the pit village of Chadsmoor was transformed into a place of wonder in the eyes of the school boy Tom Wakefield during the Second World War. Forty years later, and now a successful novelist, he reflects on those fading memories of childhood places and faces with reporter Peter Green; memories that may actually outlive the coal mines of Cannock themselves.

Forties' Child, Tom Wakefield's autobiography of growing up in Chadsmoor was published in 1980. Wakefield worked as a teacher before taking up writing in the 1970s producing a string of highly regarded books often set in the North Midlands. He died in 1996.

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