Once the children were evacuated, schools could have been used for many things, such as bomb shelters, temporary factories or government planning.
Also, if the children had stayed in the cities and had died, there would be no body to fight the wars later on or work. It was basically to protect the future of Britain.
Due to the government criticism of civilian casualties in World War 1, the government had a great fear of civilian casualties in this war. A child being evacuated was a way of reducing these amounts.
“It is possible, that the amount of explosives dropped from aeroplanes might exceed in the first 24hours (of the next war) the whole weight of explosives dropped in the whole period of the last war.” From the minutes of the sub committee on air raid proportions – 1924. This quote is very pessimistic. The government would have seen it and been very cautious which influenced the early government planning in which they evacuated children.
From the video it is seen that when children were evacuated, it would then be like an auction for children. They would be picked by the clothes they wore, whether they looked clean or not, cuteness and innocence. There was a mismatch of several classes and misconceptions were made all around. The country people saw the city children as rough and dirty. And the city people saw the country children as stuck up and spoilt.
However some children enjoyed country life, such as the boy from “Goodnight Mr Tom” where he escaped the brutality and abuse from his mother in the city to go and live in the country where he was happy. But others found country life difficult and all they wanted to do was go back home to where they felt more comfortable.
The children were often very well looked after, as I saw in the video titled “Westward Ho!” I saw the children were greeted in the countryside with hot tea and many friendly faces.
Where the children were sent to was censored very tightly by the government, so much so that the parents weren’t allowed to know. This was to keep the Nazis from doing terrible things, such as bombing the trains that they would have known the children were on.
The government made a major effort in trying to persuade parents that evacuating their child was for the best. For example, a 1942 government poster about evacuation shows a mother and her two children in the countryside contemplating on whether she should bring her children back into the city or not. In a faded form, the picture shows Hitler standing behind her telling her to “Take them back”. The caption of the poster writes “DON’T do it mother – Leave the children where they are.” This poster to me seems quite successful in getting its point across that you must not be tempted to bring your children back into the city.
In conclusion the British government tried to evacuate children from Britain’s major cities in the early years of the Second World War in order to protect the future generation of Britain. Having children in the cities was also seen as a distraction to both soldiers and parents. Soldiers were not able to fully concentrate on the enemy with children in the area and parents were not able to concentrate and put in full concentration in the war effort.
2 (a). Why do sources A to F differ in their attitudes to the evacuation of children?
As part of the preparation for war, the Government decided that all schoolchildren and mothers with children under five years of age should be evacuated from the cities and sent to live in villages in the countryside that were not likely to be bombed by the Germans during the war. People had many different views and attitudes towards the evacuation of children. Sources A to F are prime examples of contrasting views.
Source A shows children and their teachers being evacuated to the station in London, September 1939. This was the first wave of evacuation so the government wanted to make the evacuation process look good as they wanted to make a good impression of their organisation for parents to be reassured. Therefore I question this scene as it may have been set. If the source was for a newspaper, it could be an example of propaganda. The expressions on these children’s faces are happy and quite content, maybe thinking of the whole idea of evacuation as an adventure, or they could be happy to get away from the feared bombings and sudden raids, or abuse from parents, such as the abuse that is shown in the book and film “Goodnight Mr Tom” which tells of a young boy evacuated to the country where he is rescued by Mr Tom from his mother back in London who beats and starves him.
Source B is an extract of a teacher’s memory of being evacuated with children from her school. As this is a memory, it is not necessarily accurate and the interview took place in 1988, thus making it a secondary source. She (the teacher) explains that “the children were afraid to talk”. This differs with the attitude of the children in Source A. However they are alike in the form of organisation of the government, she explains that as they arrived at the station “the train was ready”. All evacuees including teachers feared being evacuated and suffered the fear of the unknown “we hadn’t the slightest idea where we were going”.
Source C is an extract from Carries War, a novel for children written by Nina Bowden in 1973. The fact that this book is a novel allows the author to use their poetic licence in order to make the book more interesting by use of exaggeration. In the book there are some true misconceptions. For example, in the book, one of the children giggles because the foster parents are naïve to think they are to poor to afford slippers. This is an example of the ignorance and cultural differences between people in the cities and countryside’s.
Source D is an advertisement issued by the government in 1940. It is immediately a form of propaganda which would have been censored. It was intended for people for people who took in evacuees. It shows an image of two children who look kind and sweet. Behind them is a contrast of scenery. One half shows the peaceful, bright and tranquil countryside, whereas the other shows the dark, noisy and dangerous city. Beneath the image are two forms of writing for people to read. Immediately underneath the image is a statement supposedly from the children in the image saying “Thank you, Foster-Parents…we want more like you!” Beneath that are four paragraphs of persuasive writing, informing the reader that it would be their patriotic duty to take evacuees in “for the nation”. At the end of the article, it says “You may be saving a child’s life” This statement in pulling tremendously at the heart strings of the reader convincing them that if they do not take in at least one evacuee, that child may die.
Source E is an interview with a parent in May 1940. The father lived in Southend which was one of the places which was positive to be bombed. However, the father remains adamant to let his son go. The father refers to the Phoney War where all precautions were taken to save people, but no action took place when he says “first they’ll send them, then they say they won’t”. The father is clearly scared as he insists his child won’t be properly looked after in the countryside – “They can’t be looked after...”. The father suffers a great fear of losing his child, which was the concern of many parents in the times of war.
Source F is a collection of Sources which I have selected as part of this coursework.
One source tells of a boy who was evacuated who sees his evacuation as “a new world of woods and green fields”. This shows how he realised life in the city (of Swansea) was very much different to the countryside surroundings in North Pembrokeshire. He seems so amazed in the change of scenery; he describes it as being “another life”. He seems especially pleased at the thought of “fresh country food and a room of my own”. This suggests that back in Swansea the food was not always fresh, and he had to either share a room, or didn’t have a room at all. This is a good example of the different types of lifestyles people lived, depending on where they were. You can tell that this boy’s lifestyle in the city was basically poverty and misery.
Another source tells of an evacuee telling her visiting mother about the seasons, explaining spring. She says “This is spring mummy, and they have one down here every year”. This would have been fascinating to the city people because they would not have seen flowers grow properly from their buds and experienced the fresh breeze of spring.
Looking at the attitudes of people concerned with the evacuation of children from the way, I have found that some of these sources are linked.
Sources A and B link because they both show some form of organisation the government controlled in the matter of evacuation. In Source A, the children are well ordered and look calm and content. In Source B, the teacher explains that the train was ready and waiting for the children to board when they arrived at the station.
Sources A and D link because they are both scenes trying to persuade people -both parents and potential foster parents that evacuation is safe and the children will cause them no trouble at all. In Source A, the children are portrayed as well behaved and calm, and in Source D, the two children are shown as sweet and innocent.
Sources B and E are linked because both the people share the fear of the unknown. The teacher in Source A explains that she “hadn’t the slightest idea” as to where they were going. The father in Source E explains that he won’t let his son go because “they can’t be looked after where they’re sending them”. Both the teacher and the father share the feeling of threat and misconception.
In conclusion people shared mixed emotions on how they felt about evacuation. Parents looked at it either as a safe haven or a threat for their children, and children looked at it either as an adventure or a terrifying place where they knew no one or their surroundings.
