Yet there is another explanation for the difference between sources A and B. it is possible that the photograph used for ‘Source A’ was taken for propaganda uses, for example: To make evacuation seem like a good thing. Much like that of ‘Source D’, an advertisement issued by the government in 1940 in appeal for more people in Scotland to provide homes for evacuee children. The use of propaganda is very evident, with the smiling faces of the children and quotes such as
“You will be doing a real service for the nation. You may be saving a child’s life.” At this time Blitzkrieg had just started in France and Low countries. Therefore war was suddenly becoming more real. The advertisement makes the onlooker feel guilty, it gives the feeling that one has the choice to save a child or let him/her die. This turns evacuation into a very serious, life or death subject. However, this is not how it is displayed in ‘Source C’, a novel written in 1978 by Nina Bawden for young readers. The book tells the story of two evacuee children who are sent to ‘Mrs. Evans’. The novel displays evacuation as a very exciting adventure, completely opposite to that of the interview featured in ‘Source B’; yet possibly similar to the image given in ‘Source A’ as they both have positive attitudes to evacuation.
Sources ‘B’ and ‘E’ are both similar with their attitudes to evacuation, in that they are both negative, but the reasons driving the negativity are different. With ‘Source B’ we can tell that nobody enjoyed evacuation. The children did not want to leave their families and were very afraid. ‘Source E’ however shows the negative reasons from the parent’s point of view rather than of those actually leaving for the evacuation. ‘Source E’ is an extract from a Mass Observation Survey taken in 1940. The source shows an interview with a parent of a 7-year-old boy. The Father is not putting his son up for evacuation, this is because he is under the impression that:
“They can’t be looked after where they’re sending them.” He feels that his son is better off in the city because people in the country are poor and would not be able to support children “Well, they’ve nothing there; they were starving there before the war”. He also feels that no one would be able to look after him in the country if he was to die however, in the city he has friends and family who would look after him. Yet this was still during the Phoney War, when the bombs started dropping people may have stopped being so ignorant toward the countryside as they did not want their children to suffer.
There are three primary sources that come from the early years of the war. It is possible from these sources to say that at the beginning of the war people were quite relaxed about evacuation. Whether this changes as the war continues I do not know, I think it probably does when Hitler begins to use his Blitzkrieg tactics on England. The primary evidence that is used in ‘Source A’ shows evacuee children on the way to a train station, the children do not seem to be scared, they are waving and all look quite relaxed. In ‘Source D’ the language used is very relaxed, the Government is asking the people of Scotland to take children so that they can be prepared for ‘Any crisis that may come’; not desperately pleading for the people to take evacuees to keep the death toll down. In ‘Source E’ an interview with a father shows that he will not put his son up for evacuation, he feels that things will be better here for him during the war rather than in the country, this also proves that evacuation is quite relaxed during this period.
