Evacuation Sources Questions
History Coursework Questions.
Evacuation Sources Questions
Nicky Fincham.
. What source is most useful, source B or source C?
Well, to answer this question I must first analyse both the sources, source B is a picture depicting what seems to be a class of evacuees and their teacher walking down the road, probably to the train station to be evacuated. The picture shows many of the children waving and smiling, and what seems like a lot of them skipping, showing them being happy about being evacuated. Being a photograph, it is quite unlikely that it has been changed in any way, or staged to show the children being happy, as the scene seems quite natural. However it is still possible that it was staged by the government at the time to encourage people not to resist evacuating their children, this would be done by showing the children happy and carefree, not afraid or worried about it. Also the picture was taken at the start of the war, when not many people had been evacuated, at this time the children and their families may not know exactly where they were going, and may have treated it like a holiday, so therefore they probably wouldn't be to afraid about what was happening. So, overall this source is quite a useful source, but that of course depends on what for, it is useful for showing children's reactions to being evacuated at the start of the war, however this wouldn't be useful for any time before or after this, limiting its usefulness. This also could, if it was a staged photograph by the government, be useful for showing what the government wanted people to think.
Source C however is quite different to the previous source, this is an interview with a school teacher during the evacuation, in 1988, in this source, it offers a different view of the children's feelings about being evacuated, in this source, it tells us that the children were "afraid to talk", showing that they weren't care or worry free about the situation. This source is primary evidence, as the person was there at the time, however this is taken in 1988, and the person could very well have forgotten some of the details of the evacuation, and therefore their memory of the event could be unreliable. However this might not be the case, and therefore it could be quite reliable.
Overall, I think that source B is the most reliable, as it is a photograph taken at the time, and therefore the details of the situation would nearly definitely be correct, source C however is an account from memory and therefore the details could be wrong.
2. Why do you think source D was taken?
Source D is a photograph taken by the government during the war of evacuees being bathed, it shows three bath tubs close together with all the children washing and laughing, this scene would be likely to give the impression that the children, and the places they went to were hygienic, this would lessen the worries of the children's families, and also may convince more people to become host families, because the children here seem healthy, clean and happy, not dirty smelly children with bad manners, as was many ...
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2. Why do you think source D was taken?
Source D is a photograph taken by the government during the war of evacuees being bathed, it shows three bath tubs close together with all the children washing and laughing, this scene would be likely to give the impression that the children, and the places they went to were hygienic, this would lessen the worries of the children's families, and also may convince more people to become host families, because the children here seem healthy, clean and happy, not dirty smelly children with bad manners, as was many peoples views of them. Also this may convince people to evacuate their children, as many families living in the cities were to poor to even bath their children, so this would be seen as an improvement in their lifestyle and living conditions. Also, if this picture was taken after around January 1940, when many evacuees returned, many of their reasons being that they felt they were better of at home, and that life with the host families was unhappy, or the parents believed this to be so, then this photograph could be being used by the government to convince families to keep their children with host families, that life out there wasn't as bad as it was made out to be.
So overall I think that it really depends on when this photo was taken, which would determine why it was taken.
3. Sources E and F are from interviews with people involved in evacuation. Why do you think their accounts are so different?
Source E is an interview with a host mother in 1988, who looked after a number of children during the war, in her interview she tells us that the children were extremely bad mannered and misbehaved, for instance she says that they "went around the house urinating on the walls"
Source F however is quite the opposite. This is an interview with an evacuee from 1939, again in 1988, in this account the evacuee tells us that not all evacuees were badly mannered and misbehaved, in fact a lot of them came from rich families to go and live in poorer families.
There are obviously many reasons why these accounts differ, one of these is the purpose to which both of them were written. I believe that source E was written with the purpose to give the impression that all evacuees were badly mannered etc, so in this case it would be likely that it exaggerated to show them as worse than they actually were, whereas in source F, the purpose is to show people that not all evacuees were like this, so naturally a different view would be shown. Also, their views would depend on wherever they are trying to confirm or correct an established view, in both sources this is the case, in source E the mother is trying to confirm the view that all evacuees were bad mannered and misbehaved, while in source F the person is trying to correct this view to his own views and experiences, so this would also obviously make the accounts different. Also, the interviews were taken a long time after the event, so, even though the people would still have the same views of the event, they may not fully remember the specific details, so they could just be putting in things which they heard to go with their view of the event, making their accounts different again.
4. Source A is a summery of evacuation from a school history textbook. Do you think it gives an accurate interpretation of people's attitudes towards evacuation?
I think that source A could be giving an accurate account of what happened, but only in some cases. All the way through the source the author, David Taylor, seems to be quite biased towards all the children being bad mannered, poor and misbehaved, when I know this not to be true in all cases, so in this case the source is to one sided to give a fully accurate interpretation of the situation. However, this source is written by a historian so its integrity should be trusted, however, this is written in 1988, a long time after the evacuation, and therefore he is probably relying solely on other peoples memories/ views of the time, and he may also have not consulted a full rang of sources, If he didn't then the information he's giving could well be one sided, so this would make in inaccurate. As shown in his source, he is only giving one side of the story, that all the children were poor, unhealthy and bad mannered, so this does seem to support that he hasn't consulted a full range of sources.
So overall I think this source is quite accurate for showing what life was like for families looking after kids who did come from a poor background, however it isn't accurate for showing what all evacuees were like as it only gives a one sided view.
5. Source G is an extract from a novel. Is it reliable evidence about evacuees?
Once again, like most of the sources this source only shows one side of the story, in this case it talks about a rich, or not particularly poor child, being evacuated, so straight away the accuracy is in question, but this could also mean that it is reliable for showing us what life was like in the case of rich being evacuated. Also this is an extract from a fictional novel, so it therefore cannot be taken as wholly factual. Even though it could be based on true events, the events could be exaggerated, or the details made up. Another thing in question is wherever the author has experienced evacuation, if she has then this could make the source less reliable for an overall analyse of evacuation in the sense that she would probably be writing about her experiences only, however this would then make it very reliable evidence for evacuees coming from the same background as the author. Another thing is the authors purpose in writing this novel, being a novel she is quite probably writing the novel in a way which she believes will be a successful novel, i.e. not boring and dull, so she may add interesting things, or exaggerate what actually happened.
Overall I think this extract can't be taken to be completely factual, and therefore wholly reliable, but it could be trusted as a generalisation of what happened.
6. Was evacuation a 'great success'?
Well, to answer this question, one must first analyse all the sources provided to me, starting with source A. Source A tells starts by telling us that many people were evacuated and placed with host families, however often the host families were unhappy with this as the children were "obviously poor" and had bad manners. So if you go by this source, then it would seem that in the way of a lot of people being evacuated it was a success, however for the host families, it was not, all though this source is very biased to all evacuees being poor, which I know to be untrue and therefore makes this source possibly unreliable.
Source E and source G also give a similar account to this, source E elaborating more on the children's bad habits and manners, saying that they "urinated on the walls" and so on. So this once again goes to show that the host families were unhappy with the evacuees behaviour. Source G tells us that the host families automatically expected the evacuees to be poor, "she thinks were poor children..." however this is an extract form a novel and therefore cannot be completely trusted, but it was nearly definitely based on what happened at the time.
Sources B, C and F however give quite an opposite view, that all though many people were evacuated, the host families weren't unhappy with them, nor where the children poor, or had bad manners.
The photograph in source B shows a large of evacuees walking to a train station to be evacuated, it shows them as happy children, who are well dressed, and do not look poor, or the type of children who would urinate on the walls.
Source C also gives the impression that they weren't poor, but however they it says that they weren't happy about going, not like in the other sources where it tells us about the host families being unhappy, this source is primary evidence from a teacher at the time and therefore can be trusted as being factual.
Source F is another source which says that the evacuees were not all poor, but this one goes into much more depth, saying that it was also upsetting for a rich kid to be evacuated to a poor host family.
Overall I believe that the evacuation was both successful and not successful, it was successful in the way of the numbers of people being evacuated, but however it was not a success with the host families, as many of them were very unhappy with the situation. Also this could be viewed as a success in the long term, i.e. children returning with better health and manners after being in the country, I know this to be the case many times, also due to the problems which the host families faced, many people became more aware of the problems which poor people had, i.e. tier bad health, bad manners and general conditions. In the long term this could then be treated by the government with better living conditions and money for the poor, I know from my own knowledge that this was the case, so in the long term I believe that yes, the evacuation was a "great success".
