Source E mostly contains information on what some evacuees did in their foster homes – the behaviour seems extremely unhygienic. This may have put many people of the city areas as these actions where called ‘city habits’. This gives off the impression that evacuation wasn’t a good success as it didn’t cause any good to those that brought in children – some even questioned whether anything would be much different if they hadn’t been brought down into the countryside. Though, I do know from my own studies that not all children behaved this extreme – only that these actions were probably because of the conditions in the cities. Source I is representation of what one father thinks about evacuation in 1940 explaining his worry and disagreement with evacuation, including about whether his son could eat properly where he was going to be sent. This seems very contradictory as it seemed city areas were worst conditions, if this is true would this mean that either children were being sent to places that had worse conditions or children were being sent unnecessarily. These both infer that evacuation was not a success. This father however is not the majority of the population so cannot say that most parents did not like evacuation and the statistics are against this father as many children were sent and if the majority of parents didn’t agree with evacuation and not sent their child the amount of children sent would definitely be much lower.
Source B is a photograph shows a group of children on their way to the train station – which is a large part of evacuation. This also is a part where children weren’t told what was happening and were grouped with their schools. All the children seem very happy and posing for the picture. Even though most of the children involved in evacuation were told what was actually happening when they got to the train station. This may be why they seem unusually happy. This source shows evacuation in a positive manner – therefore may show that evacuation was a success as the children weren’t upset with the whole operation.
Source D is a photograph of many male evacuees bathing in the times of the war. Even though hygiene wasn’t the top priority, especially those from the busy areas of England, because of the lack of health and food, people from the rural areas thought it necessary. This photograph contradicts other evidence that evacuation wasn’t a success because of the accounts of children not enjoying cleaning and bathing – yet in this picture all of the children look happy and joyful. This also shows that evacuation was a successful operation as it shows the children improving, compared to their old lifestyle, even in its smallest ways. Yet some may have been sent to places in worse condition from where they came from. Also, all the children in the baths are male, this meant that the people that were taking care of them – respected and preserved the children’s dignity. This Source shows that evacuation was a great success, as it shows the foster parents cared about their hygiene, wellbeing and their pride. This newspaper article is Source H, and it’s focusing on only the positive points of evacuation – this may have been seen as unreliable. This is because this source is produced by the government which is funding the evacuation process. This was probably used as propaganda for those like in the Source I to send their children to the ‘safe places.’ Source H is a newspaper article written by the government promoting how successful evacuation was. It is trying to persuade more families to take in an evacuated child. It is propaganda so it is doubtlessly going to focus only on the positive aspects of the process, and whilst the author will most likely not have directly lied about how good and successful a thing it is, the purpose of the piece would be to try and persuade people into something, so the truth may have been edited slightly or exaggerated.
I think that evacuation was a success; many people would agree and call it a ‘great success’. Yet, there are those sources in which shows that evacuation wasn’t a ‘perfect’ success. I see it as inevitable that some evacuees had unfriendly or strict foster parents and also, that some evacuees were bad mannered and deviant. Yet the things the government could control ran smoothly, and there were fewer casualties than expected, this surely means it was a success of some sort – yet there is an argument that if the children weren’t even sent away that there would be the same decreased number than necessary.