YOUNG actors performed a near miracle at Hughenden Manor when they put on a first class performance with little preparation time.

Crowds flocked to the former home of Benjamin Disraeli over the weekend of June 11 and 12 to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the end of the Second World War.

One of the weekend's highlights was the performance of a community drama project involving 20 children from three schools.

Children from The Downley School, Pipers Corner School, and West Wycombe Combined School dressed up in wartime attire to explain Hughenden Manor's past.

With only nine hours of rehearsal time, the children put together a 25-minute performance called Hillside Story.

The play told the tale of how the National Trust site was used as a top secret map-making base, code-named Hillside, during the Second World War.

Visitors of all ages enjoyed a host of military displays and demonstrations, as well as information and exhibits about life on the Home Front.

The show was based on eyewitness accounts of local people who were stationed at Hillside during the 1940s.

They used material from a newsletter produced and printed at Hughenden by airmen on site, called The Hillside Herald, original copies of which were loaned for the project by Wycombe residents.

Jessie Binns, Community Learning Officer at Hughenden said: "This enabled the next generation to learn from the first-hand words and accounts put together by the older people who have recorded Hughenden's secret history for posterity.

"The children have been just brilliant.

She added: "And the crowds who saw their performance at the weekend would agree."