The evacuation of British Children - Which source is the more useful as evidence about the start of the children's evacuation journey?

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Coursework 2

By Kristina Good ridge 11t

                                                The evacuation of British Children

Which source is the more useful as evidence about the start of the children’s evacuation journey?

Explain your answer using Sources B and C and knowledge from your studies.

Source B is a photograph of evacuees walking to a station in London in September 1939. All there is a mass of children all walking and waving looking at the camera. They are all walking on the pavement, and the teachers are walking on the road. All the children look very happy and seem to be looking forward to the adventure. This source is useful to the extend that it shows you what the children were wearing. You can see the bags and the labels on the children as well as the types of clothes they wore. It also shows you where the children had to walk and the fact that they did have to walk to the stations on there own, with the other class mates in a mass group.

However, the source has many reliability problems. The source is a photograph there for it is only one moment in time. This picture also might have been staged out and therefore could show us nothing on what really did happen. If the photograph is real, the other problem is that, the evacuation process might not of happened in this way else where. This could be just the way they did it in London. Another problem with this source is that we don’t know why the photograph was taken. It could have been just anyone taking a picture as a one off, or it could have been a government picture for use as propaganda to try an encourage mothers and fathers that evacuation is a great idea. Another fault is that there is a teacher standing in the road looking at the camera waving, with all the other children waving and smiling too. The teacher could be telling the children to wave and smiling for the camera, which again brings me back to the theory of it being staged for use of propaganda.  There is also one man walking to one side. He is the only man there which makes him seem very suspicious. He could be telling them all to wave, or he could be just pasting by. The picture is taken in a poor part of London, which again could just show what happened in London when the evacuees left for the station. The photograph was also taken at the very start of evacuation (1939), therefore it only shows what might of happened. The process might of changed as time went on.

Source B is an interview with a teacher about the evacuation process with the children from the school she taught at. The teachers is talking about the feelings, sites and sounds from when they left for the station to when they where just about to get on the train. The source is useful as it tells the reader about the feeling and all the emotions running through the mothers as they watch there children leave for a new life. (‘ The mothers pressed against the iron gates calling “Good-bye darling”’)  It also tells us that the mothers weren’t allowed to walk with the children to the station, they had to walk behind the group. It also tells us that the children where so scared that they couldn’t speak, so therefore just murmured. The source is also useful as not only did the children and the parents didn’t know where they were going, nor did the teachers, they where in the same position as the children where.

This source has many good points, as well as many faults. To start with, the interview was taken 49 years after the evacuation of this teacher happened. That’s is a long time and therefore the teacher might not of remembered all of what happened. The source is also very brief. It doesn’t give much detail about things, like where they walked from, or which school it was she help evacuate. Another fault is that it might have been so traumatic for the teacher that she could only remember the points that struck out the most at the time and not facts.  The teacher might of just been looking back at the bad times in the interview. We don’t know what kind of questions the teacher might have been asked in the interview.

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In conclusion, I think that both sources are useful in there own respects. They both give very different feelings, but they are many faults with both of the sources. I think that neither one source is more efficient or useful than the other.    

Source G is an extract taken from a novel. Is it reliable as evidence about evacuees?

Explain your answer using source G and your own knowledge.

Source G is an extract from ‘Carrie’s War’ written by Nina Bowden. The extract tells about what it was like for evacuees when they ...

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