Evacuation 4
What might be some problems about children being
sent from cities to the countryside?
• Children had never been to the countryside
before
• Children had never seen real livestock (cows,
pigs, hens etc) before
• Children might have had indoor toilets at
home, but in the country, the facilities were
often
at the end of the garden and were basically a
hole in the ground …
• Children might not know the local dialect and
might not understand what the local people
were saying
• Children might get cruel people to stay
with
• Children might get people who expected them
to work hard
And many more.
Also, many children were sent abroad, not just
to the countryside.
For some children it was a brilliant
experience, but for some, it was a bad time.
Some were, for the first time, living a good
life with lots of good fresh food; some were
expected to work all day (say on a farm)
although each local person was paid to take the
children.
Some children were abused either physically or
sexually; there was nothing to be done.
Yet, evacuation was not compulsory and some
parents were understandably reluctant to take
part, despite propaganda posters which
encouraged co-operation. For those parents who
did co-operate it would be a nervous wait of
several days to find out where their children
had gone with notification coming via a postcard
through the mail.
It was one thing to remove children from
at-risk areas, but it was another to find
somewhere for them to go. Various options were
discussed, with civilians generally preferring
the option of camps to be set up and supervised
by teachers, but government ministers instead
decided to use private billets. It became
compulsory for homes to host assigned evacuees,
with host families being paid 10 shillings and
sixpence (53p; equivalent to £26 today) for the
first
unaccompanied child, and 8 shillings and
sixpence for any subsequent children.
Places were assessed in terms of accommodation
available rather than suitability or the hosts’
inclination for raising children. This could
lead to resentment of those who would be forced
to care for children against their will,
compounded with that many children did not want
to be there in the first place and tried to run
away. This problem was particularly prevalent in
the lower-class families, as wealthier families
often had relatives or school friends in the
country to take in their children, rather than
relying on strangers.
Obviously, parents and children often missed
each other. In the ‘Phoney War’ that followed
the start of the Second World War, Hitler was
not ready for a full-scale attack on Britain and
France. This meant uneventful months passed,
giving a false sense of safety, so many children
began to come back. Despite warnings by the
Minister of Health, nearly half of all evacuees
had returned to their homes by Christmas. But,
when France fell in June 1940, Britain became
the next target and the Blitzkrieg began.
What was ‘the Phoney War’?
This was the time between war being declared
(September 3rd 1939) and the first attacks by
Germany on the British mainland (April
1940).
The government had to keep reminding parents to keep their children away and remind them what they were fighting for - even on the Home Front.
Here's a strong poster used to try to persuade
parents to keep their children away.
And then the war started in England fully. Cities such as London, Coventry, Birmingham,
Swansea, Plymouth and Sheffield were pounded mercilessly and evacuation became a policy grounded in reality. The south coast of England was also quickly changed from a Reception area to an Evacuation area due to the threat of invasion and so 200,000 children were evacuated (or re-evacuated) to safer locations. This ‘trickle’ evacuation continued until the end of 1941, but even after the Blitz ended, danger remained.
We do not look at the Blitzes in much detail
because that’s a whole subject in itself. Here,
though, is an iconic picture:
And lots more HERE.
Air attacks continued sporadically, then in
1944 an entirely new threat arrived in the form
of Hitler’s V-1 flying bombs and V-2 ballistic
missiles. This began Operation Rivulet, the
final major evacuation of the war. Running
between July and September 1944 more than a million people moved out of danger
zones.
To try and ease the blow of being separated
from their parents, a special song was written
for children in 1939 by Gaby Rogers and Harry
Philips, entitled ‘Goodnight Children
Everywhere’ and broadcast every night by the
BBC:
Goodnight Children Everywhere
Sleepy little eyes in a sleepy little head,
Sleepy time is drawing near.
In a little while you’ll be tucked up in your
bed,
Here’s a song for baby dear.
Goodnight children everywhere,
Your mummy thinks of you tonight.
Lay your head upon your pillow,
Don’t be a kid or a weeping willow.
Close your eyes and say a prayer,
And surely you can find a kiss to spare.
Though you are far away, she’s with you night
and day,
Goodnight children everywhere
Soon the moon will rise, and caress you with
its beams,
While the shadows softly creep.
With a happy smile you will be wrapped up in
your dreams,
Baby will be fast asleep. Goodnight children
everywhere.
Not only are those the words but
HERE'S
the actual song!
You also have to remember that not all children
were evacuated in the first place. Evacuation
was a voluntary process and, while blackouts,
gas masks and other wartime changes were
accepted, many parents refused to part with
their children during the war. Parents’ concerns
were not helped by the fact that the government
could often not even tell them where their
children would be going, and so only about 47
per cent of children were actually evacuated in
the initial wave. Just under half of children in
the danger areas.
It didn’t help at all that the Phoney War
happened, when there was no action against the
British mainland by Germany. Parents who had
sent their children away wondered why they had
gone through all the hassle and upset, the
loneliness and even the long journeys to visit
the children once they had arrived. Many brought
their children back home.
And then, as mentioned above, the war proper
started and suddenly parents wanted to get the
children out of the danger areas. And of course
they were allowed to go, the government
helped.
This evacuation seems generally to give the impression that it was not very nice, generally, but in fact, although there were bad times for some children, for most of the evacuated children (and mothers etc) these were fantastic times.
For some children, it was the first time they had seen more grass than a tiny front or back garden (if they were lucky); many reported being amazed at the size of a cow. They’d only seen farmyard toys before and thought that a cow was a pretty small animal. For many of the children, apples came from a shop - in the countryside they were stunned to see many apples having on trees! The sights, smells and sounds were totally new to many of the children - if they came from cities then they were perfectly used to buses coming along every few minutes, but in the country, one bus a week was often the case. They were used to houses being connected to each other (terraced houses) but in the country, houses, although really tiny, often, were set in their own gardens and ‘next door’ night be a hundred metres away.
When the war finished, coming home was often
joyous, a reunion with families and their own
cities, the places the played and the schools
they had disliked but which added to the sense
of ‘home’.
Unfortunately, many city children returned to
different areas.
Why might that be?
Because their homes and areas had been
destroyed by the bombing of the Germans.
Not only that but there were many cases where
the children arrived back home, four or even
five years older, with changed minds and changed
attitudes. The parents often expected that the
children would be more or less the same as they
had when they were evacuated (except for being
older of course) but they didn’t expect the
changes in the way their own children thought
and acted.
As you know, your thoughts and minds change a
lot between being about 9 and about 14, and this
led to conflict between mothers and children;
not only that but slowly fathers came home too,
after being released from the forces.
Quite a lot of children, far from being happy
to be back home, found that they were very
unhappy - gone were the open fields, the cozy
farmhouses or the comfy cottages they had been
living in for the last few years. Gone was the
clean air and the more plentiful food - berries
from hedgerows, fallen apples and fruit,
actually seeing real-life animals.
Arriving back in a tiny house in a crowded
city, polluted, constantly noisy and often with
many bomb-sites just wasn’t what they expected.
Their friends had often been sent to other
evacuation areas, and they had made new friends
in the places to which they had been
evacuated.
But, without Operation Pied Piper, many more people would have been killed in the blitzes on cities in England - one bombed house might have a mother inside, and maybe a grandmother too, but not an extra 2 or 3 children.
More than two and a half million children were
evacuated, and many from the other evacuation
groups too. It wasn’t just that they had to
leave the danger areas - after all, most people
travelled on some sort of excursions (one-day
trips) or even holidays and that wasn’t a
problem.
So what was the other type of problem?
Emotional problems.
When children went away, and came back again,
and the times in between, it was emotional. It
could be exhilarating or upsetting, an adventure
or something scary.
These emotions, especially the negative ones, were just as much ‘sacrifices’ as were men joining the forces or women working long hours in factories.
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