Chippenham schoolgirl's TV role

6:22pm Sunday 12th October 2008

Comments (0)   Have your say »

A Chippenham schoolgirl will forego her usual home comforts this autumn to go back in time as part of a hugely successful BBC Wales TV series.

Leah Ireland, 12, from Sutton Benger, has been selected to travel back to wartime Wales as an evacuee in Coal House at War, which will see three families live life as it was in a south Wales mining community at the end of 1944.

The Sheldon Comprehensive School pupil – who ironically recently moved to Wiltshire from Wales – will be joining the families in cramped miners’ cottages at Stack Square, Blaenavon Ironworks.

Living under blackout regulations by night and rations by day, Leah is one of a number of ‘visitors’ set to help their host families “Digging for Victory” in the vegetable plots.

She’s most looking forward to experiencing life in an old house and comparing modern teaching methods with schooling in the 1940s.

But she’s not keenly anticipating the food (“I don’t want to eat rabbit!”) or living without modern cosmetic accessories.

“Normally when I get up in the morning, I use hair straighteners,” she said wistfully. But Leah’s also philosophical about her plight. “They’re going to have me working so hard, I’ll probably forget all about it.”

Coal House at War will be broadcast on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from tomorrow, October 13 on BBC One Wales for three weeks. For viewers outside Wales who want to keep up with the latest action from Stack Square, BBC One Wales is available on Sky channel 972 and Virgin Media channel 864. It will also be available on the BBC’s iPlayer.