Evacuation - Both sources B and C show a different view on the evacuation of children in 1939.

        I believe this source to be of limited reliability due to the fact that it’s from a book that was written to entertain and not inform however some of the aspects of the story do agree with my own knowledge.

3. Evacuation did save many lives and arguably started a social revolution for the better of the common man however if did have more than its fair share of problems. Children would be separated from their families and whence living with their temporary foster parents they would behave badly and often fight with the other children in their school classes. During the first stages of evacuation the government were claiming that cities were very likely to be bombed but for the first years of evacuation no bombing raids took place so parents often organised to have their children brought back. This period was called the ‘Phoney war’, however once a large proportion of children had been brought back bombing raids commenc3ed and children were all sent back again. This caused a great deal of confusion and disruption for both children and the cities in general and would be a point against evacuation being a success

        When evacuation was first implemented children would be led in huge lines to the train station escorted by their teachers. Very few people were actually informed about their destinations and many parents were distraught about leaving their children, resulting in a very sorrowful and tearful scene. This lack of communication was a huge problem and many children were extremely frightened and worried.

        The next stage of evacuation was a humiliating experience for many children; they would be lined up in front of the protective hosts who would choose which children they would like to have. They would choose nice looking girls who wouldn’t be much trouble or tough looking boys who although would be a handful would work very well on the land, obviously for the last few chosen the humiliation and huge hit to their ego sometimes left permanent mental scars, and because the hosts got ‘useless’ children they would often treat them worse as well. This process of choosing children was a massive problem of the evacuation process.

        Once settled in the children often appalled their hosts with disgusting behaviour and hygiene, with children urinating on the walls even though indoor toilets were available, bad language was common and fighting often took place with the children that lived in the area. Although this had obvious bad implications for the hosts it had a huge positive implication for the whole of Britain, as you will see later.

        In these knew upper-class houses most of the children were looked after well and received sympathy from their hosts but many children would be worked extremely hard and beaten when they behaved badly but the worst thing is that the Government would give the hosts a small amount of money with which to provide for the children with, this amount was extremely small, only about double the price of a pair of tights at the time and some hosts chose to keep the money and let the children go hungry. Although the experience was bad for both the children and hosts in many cases there were two massive positive sides to the evacuation.

        The first was the obvious preservation of life, hundreds of children would have been killed during the air raids should evacuation had not taken place but many children would return to a blown up house and no parents. The second point is the social revolution that took place because of the evacuation; many upper-class people who had political influence had no idea of the poor conditions in which the children lived and the evacuation brought about realisation of the terrible conditions. The people were shocked and campaigned for a welfare state that guaranteed the wellbeing of the poor people; this welfare state is still going today and provides security for everyone in Britain.         

        Overall I do think the evacuation was a success despite its many problems, it permanently affected the country in which we loved for the better and saved hundreds of lives as well.