A SHORT film reciting the stories of 19th century children working in the glass industry is being made by students at Glasshouse College.

Kids in the Cone, based on an original 1862 report by J. Edwards White for the Children’s Employment Commission, will tell the true tales of how children were treated in the industry.

The project features eight students, all of whom are aged between 16 and 25 and suffer from either complex behaviour or learning difficulties.

Peter Howe, project co-ordinator at Glasshouse College, said: “Most of the actors are in the drama department here but they are much more used to stage acting rather than film acting which is completely different.

“Sometimes doing the takes over and over again has been very challenging.”

Rosa Verge, the project’s film-maker, said: “Some of the students had great difficulty saying their lines, some of them can barely speak so what they have done is amazing.

“To get what we have done out of the students in such a short space of time is nothing short of a miracle.

“The students might go home thinking I made that mistake, that mistake, that mistake, but in the end they see the whole thing edited and they just look their very best and are delighted."

The film, supported by Heritage Lottery Funding, has been shot at both the Ruskin Glass Centre and the Red House Glass Cone to make it as realistic as possible.

It will premiere at this year’s International Festival of Glass which takes place at various Stourbridge Glass Quarter locations between May 28 and 31.

Rosa hopes the film, one of the first to look into the work of children in the glass industry, will appeal to young people who visit the museums.

She said: “There is a lot of information about adults in the glass industry, but they haven’t got anything about kids.

“The report contained amazing verbatim interviews with children from Stourbridge industry about their working conditions, which were really awful.

“They would do shifts of six hours on and six hours off for four days a week. They would work during the night and walk up to 32 miles-a-day. There were also a lot of cases of abuse.

“When you were told the industrial revolution brought Britain into a new age, it was all on the back of kids, which is awful.

“At least now by watching the film kids will be able to relate with what they see when they walk round the Glass Cone or the Webb Corbett centre.”

The film marks the second time Rosa has worked in collaboration with the college after they created a documentary about children working on the local canals, entitled Kids on the Cut.