In the first few days of September 1939, nearly 3,000,000 people were transported to the countryside, which were mostly children, others including pregnant women and other vulnerable people such as the disabled. Some were also sent overseas to commonwealth countries such as Australia and South Africa, mainly to reduce the number of deaths in the country. They thought that they would be home before Christmas. It was usually the poorer children were not used to travelling. The wealthier family children were not upset on an average compared to the other. This was because they were used to travelling and being long distances away. Some parents even visited their children at weekends. Within a week, a quarter of the population of Britain would have new addresses.
At the start of the war schools were moved together. The children wore identity labels, gasmasks hanging from their necks and a small suitcase full of cloths and food for all the day. They left in the early hours of the morning when it was dark. The adults thought evacuation was a shamble. This was because hundreds of children arrived in the wrong area, with little or no rations, and the fact there were not enough homes to put them. The government emphasised the benefits of the countryside by the use of propaganda. It did this in many ways, such as; posters and advertisements to convince parents to send their children to a better place and exaggeration on the amount of carnage to caused in the future.
The government ordered hospitals to prepare for the worst and stockpile coffins. It is bad enough to see many coffins, but its worse to see many little coffins (children). Although the number of casualties in the First World War was not high, it marked an important turning point in the British Government’s attitude to warfare. For the first time, they felt that their civilians were vulnerable. In the past, the fact that Britain was an island meant that civilians felt safe. Planes and bombs changed this. It was because of this why the mass evacuation took place. Another motive behind the evacuation was to preserve a generation of young men. After the First World War, Britain lost nearly a generation of young men, and the government particularly wasn’t for that to occur once more. The government did what it could to assure parents that evacuation was in their best interests of their child. Posters appeared urging families to send their children away. Often, these blatantly played on parents’ fear. Nonetheless, for parents, the choice remained an agonising one: hand their children over to complete stranger
In the hope this would make them safe from German bombs, or keep them at home and face uncertainty and danger. Regardless, parents always had lots of questions about the fate of their children that no one able to answer. They lived a life of perpetual worry especially those women who prayed dutifully for a husband fighting overseas and an evacuated child. The government used propaganda to reduce worries.
The government thought that there was enough housing to pack the children in, yet they were wrong. They thought that everything was well planned, but people were making arrangements behind their backs. Some families had to take more than three children. The National Health Service played a big part during the war.
Later, with expenditure on the war continuing to the ‘ blitz’ on Britain’s cities over, the government asked parents of evacuated children to contribute to the financial cost of fostering their children. Most simply could not afford to do so increasing numbers. By 1944 the evacuation scheme had all stopped, and not even the panic caused by Hitler’s flying bombs and rockets could get it started again.