From my background research I know that some children departed with spades and buckets because the parents had not that heart to tell them what was really happening. One of these children asked why his mother at the school gate was crying… the quick-witted teacher replied that ‘because she can’t go on her holidays too’. Excellent propaganda was sent out, posters, pictures and photos such as this one that encouraged both children and parents.
Source B shows the negative sides and is more personal that the first source. Extracted from an interview with a teacher in 1988, the teacher remembers being evacuated with the school children. The interview was made in 1988 many years after the war so the lady would be of old age. Her memories may be woolly and not of great accuracy, and as it will have been written up by the interviewer it is secondary information. She may be influenced on her views of evacuation after the war; and so be biased against it, even though it saved so many lives at the time. She describes the children as being ‘too afraid to talk’, which I feel may have been true. Children were being taken away from their families and boarding a train where neither themselves or the teachers knew where they were going, as the teacher quotes ‘we hadn’t the slightest idea where we were going and we put the children on the train and the gates closed behind us’. The worry and anxiety affected the parents above all, and from this source it suggests that the mothers ‘pressed against the iron gates calling ‘good-bye darling’. Even though they were told not to come they trailed behind desperate to spend the last moments with their children. Mothers were persuaded into letting their children go by the government and the propaganda around at the time and were even considered selfish if they did not allow their children
We do not know who the source is written by, just that it is from an interview. There does not seem to be a real purpose to this interview, but just to perhaps contribute the information gathered to a history book or other merely informative purposes, as the interview took place so long after the war was over.
There would be no need therefore for the lady to lie or twist the truth purposefully. And no purpose of the interviewer to convert her information into propaganda or such, so I thin the interview is fairly trustworthy to that extent
Source C was written in 1973 and was published a long time after the end of the war. This makes it a secondary source, as it has not come directly from the mouths of the children or the foster parent. Written by a lady presumably for the purpose of educating children on evacuation, language and content is dulled slightly to be more appropriate for children. If it had been a book for adults it would have been described differently. The children would not have ‘giggled’ but would have been offended by the automatic presumption of poverty. They may have even explained that their slippers would not fit in the case. Written for children, no bad points would have been inserted and simple language will have been used. The source may lose reliability due to being edited for children as children are not to be exposed to the negative side of evacuation.
This is not a source, which shows the failure or success or evacuation, but if it was to highlight one over the other I would say it shows the successes mostly. I know from other information that one of the main products of evacuation was the sudden realisation from the middle class of the poverty and poor education of children and adults living in the slums. Shown here in the source the woman does presume they are too poor to have slippers, and is embarrassed that she presumed they would own some. Even though the children giggle about it, it is very serious that some children evacuated were too poor to have slippers and some too poor to form the necessary kit of items required.
The kindness of the foster parent towards the children and the understanding of her taking them both acknowledging they were siblings show other successes of evacuation. However this was not always the case. Another foster parent may have been negative towards the child or children, and some foster –parents only had room for one.
In source D, the language is emotive ‘you may be saving a child’s life’ and it also gives a patriotic feeling ‘share in the present task’. Written by the government for an advertisement not much reliability can be placed upon it. The government only wanted to show the good sides of evacuation, as to persuade more parents and children into it. It is very biased towards all the good in evacuation and does not mention what happens if you are separated from your sister or brother or you are with parents who use you like a slave. Looking from the other hand, it only shows two sweet children smiling widely, but this does not represent the horrors, which some foster parents had to put up with. I know from my background research that this did happen, ‘I just wont have that child any longer. He wets the bed every night. He was all right at first. Now he is awful’, ‘if you say two words to them they turn around and swear at you’… these are just two reports from parents who suffered from evacuation. The source was written in 1940, before bad propaganda was released about evacuation and from the picture, which is separated in the background, half in the city half in the country, people just wanted to take innocent children from the danger zone. The government as propaganda to persuade mothers that evacuation is purely beneficial would submit a caption and picture like this. It does not show any bad aspects such as homesickness, cruelty, labour and general poor care.
Source E is an interview with a parent in May 1940. Due to his criticisms on other parents the observer presumes the man has not got a child, but he does, a 7 yr. old boy. He is not letting his child go though, as he says they cannot be looked after in ‘The Shires’.
The father is obviously going to be wary of evacuation as many parents were. From my background research a little boy quotes ‘ I went to an oldish lady, but my mum wanted me back, so I wasn’t there long’. Parents, even when at the station waving their children off, never wanted their own to go. The interview was for a Mass Observation Survey by the Government, so the man was definitely telling the truth, as in a survey nothing is usually twisted to fit into a certain category. The date, 1940, I feel has no relevance, only that it is at the beginning of the war and so the man perhaps doesn’t know of the terror of the bombing, which will happen. He may just know of the children who were evacuated as early as summer 1939, and were fetched home as no signs of bombing were seen.
Was evacuation a success? It is easy to ask ‘what is the need for evacuation? Surely if war comes it would be better for families to stick together and not go breaking up homes?’ But you have to think of families densely situated in busy places which are prime targets for bombing and then think if you would rather break up your household for a couple of years, then be re-united, or face death together.
Evacuation was purely voluntary so it is said, but increasing propaganda by the government and fear of bombing was enough to make it a heart-wrenching, but compulsory decision. British propaganda encouraged evacuation, but German propaganda did the opposite- showing children being dragged away from their parents screaming… and Hitler leaning over saying ‘don’t do it’.
Despite the fact that foster parents were volunteers, not many did it for the pure interest of the children. They could use the children as housekeepers, labourers or cooks and the foster parent was paid around 10/6p for keeping the child. Sometimes the children were the culprits though, ‘if you sat two words to them they turn round and swear at you’ from one foster parent. It was rare that both the children and the foster parents lived in harmony.
It is hard to deduce whether evacuation as a success or not overall. I can say that there were some failures like the rude children, rude foster parents and children being home again before Christmas, and some successes like the happy foster-households, the efficiency of it, and the lives saved.