Évacués

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There were no big bombing raids on Britain in the first months of the war (know as The Phoney War) as a result by early 1940 many children had returned home.

In early 1939, the reception areas compiled lists of available housing. Space was found for about 2,000 people, and the government also constructed camps that provided a few thousand additional spaces. [ citation needed] When the war ended the evacuees could finally return home. Some found their houses had been bombed or their families had departed (or no longer wanted them) but for most it was a happy reunion and brought an end to a prolonged period of fear, confusion and separation. But, for children used to being in the country, and parents not used to having children to deal with, this was not always easy. Many evacuees were now four or five years older than when they left; appearances, accents, outlooks and preferences had changed. Evacuation had reshaped an entire generation of youth, yet without Operation Pied Piper, and the biggest movement of people in Britain’s history, the death toll in the Second World War would undoubtedly have been much higher. Girls from Notre Dame High School in Battersea, south London bathing in the River Towy at Llandovery, Carmarthenshire in 1940 For some children, the end of the war brought an end to a prolonged period of fear, confusion and separation. For others, it brought considerable upheaval, as they had found happiness and excitement in their new lives in the countryside and were now expected to return to the cities and to families they barely remembered. Interviewer: “There must have been some little children who hadn't even been to the country as much as you had?”Evacuation tried to ensure the safety of young children from the cities that were considered to be in danger of German bombing - London, Coventry, Birmingham, Portsmouth etc. As well as the huge logistical challenge for the government, towns, families, and volunteers, evacuation was an emotional upheaval, distressing for both children and parents. Evacuation was also entirely voluntary, so why did so many thousands so readily sign up before the war had even started? The children who were evacuated to the country were evacuees. Their letters tell us a lot about what life was like for them. Sometimes the evacuees were assigned a family to live with. In other cases, the host families came to the village hall and chose the children they would take with them.

At Waterloo, 80 per cent of the normal travellers saw nothing of the schoolchildren. After Earl de la Warr, President of the Board of Education, had toured a number of schools in West London, he said, 'If the arrangements at the other end for receiving the children are as good as at this end, it bodes well for the scheme.' Young Grandpa: I lived with a lovely family in Yorkshire. They had three kids already, so one more didn’t make that much difference.He and his brother were evacuated from their home in New Jersey to Cornwall with their mother and two teachers. The Plantins, an Anglo-French family with a large house in the countryside, provided accommodations for the boys. Derek went to Helston Grammar School from 1944 to 1949 after passing 11+ exams. Did Evacuees Go To Cornwall? Kushner, Tony."Horns and Dilemmas: Jewish Evacuees in Britain during the Second World War." Immigrants & Minorities (1988) 7#3 pp 273–291.

To smaller towns and villages in the countryside. Some children were sent to stay with relatives outside in the countryside, but others were sent to live with complete strangers. The BEA (formerly The Evacuees Reunion Association) is a non-profit making registered charity which is funded by our members subscriptions and donations. Interviewer: “I was going to ask if you had ever thought whether had you children they would be evacuated? You've seen it as a child, what would it be like as a parent?”John Wheeler: “But I honestly don't remember whether head nits, head lice was more than an initial problem. It certainly was a problem when they arrived because most of them were infected based. Cat and Bill Milcoy in the first weeks they were with us spent more time in the bath almost than they did in bed.” How was life in the country different to life in the city? e.g. fresh air, animals, peaceful, less traffic By the end of the war, over 1 million schoolchildren and their teachers had been evacuated. Over 500,000 mothers with their infant children and a number of disabled or elderly people.

Johnson, Derek E (1985). Exodus of Children: Story of the Evacuation, 1939–45. Clacton-on-Sea: Pennyfarthing Publications. ISBN 0-9500031-1-5.Young Grandpa: When I was young, there was a big war happening all over the world. We were only allowed to eat a certain amount of food, to make sure every family had enough. This was called ‘rationing’. The Holocaust resulted in the largest exodus of people in American history during World War II. More than 3.5 million people were relocated during the war, many of whom were children. The process of tracing these individuals can be difficult, but local archives provide a wealth of information. A number of the children who were evacuated and relocated from a school may be identified in the records. Did Evacuees Go To Devon? Twelve months earlier, the Government had surveyed available housing, but what they had not taken into account was the extent to which middle-class and well-to-do families would be making their own private arrangements. Consequently, those households who had previously offered to take in evacuees were now full.