Britain's Policy of Evacuating Children

Britain's Policy of Evacuating Children

During the Second World War people’s attitudes and reactions towards

evacuation changed. There were both positive and negative experiences

for the three main groups I am going to discuss, the evacuated

children, their parents and their foster parents.

For the children at the beginning of the Second World War, Evacuation

was looked upon as one big adventure, and the children treated it

rather like a childish game. Their opinions however began to chance,

for on the 3rd September many children were evacuated, most were sent

to the countryside in the hope that they would be safe from the

expected bombs and gas attacks. The evacuation was arranged via the

schools and whole classes, even whole schools were evacuated together.

Many of the children evacuated really did believe it was an exciting

adventure and good to get out of the city and see parts of Britain

that they would never normally get the chance to see and explore.

“ My young sister and I were evacuated to Ipswich on the first of

September 1939. I can’t really remember the preparations but I do

remember being on the train at Ilford Station and arriving in Ipswich.

We were actually quite excited, I can remember my sister saying she

was desperate to explore and see more of our country. We were taken to

a church hall I think and then were allowed to have some of the

goodies out of the bag we had all been given!! (I remember there were

custard cream biscuits and a tin of corned beef and I think some

chocolate but what else I’ve forgotten although I do remember the

brown paper carrier bag it was in!) It was all made out to be rather

exhi...

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... reduce death count which was

also vital. The groups I discussed all had very different reactions to

evacuation throughout the war, swaying their opinions.

The government rather rashly announced the end of official evacuation

on 7th September 1944, the day before the first V.2 rocket fell on

London, but even these new attacks failed to halt the steady return to

the cities, which reached its peak during the autumn of 1944’ One

after another from September onwards the former danger districts were

proclaimed ‘go home’ areas, until by the end of the year only Hull and

London were not yet considered safe. Their turn finally came on 2nd

May 1945, six days before the European war ended, but it was to be

nearly another year before the evacuation scheme was officially wound

up. Few, it must be acknowledged, mourned its end.