I know from my own knowledge that some children were excited to be evacuated, but some were also apprehensive to leave, which is not revealed in the photograph. Photographs are also sometimes unreliable because they can be staged to give a certain picture that can then be used to promote the event in the desired way, such as the expressions on the children’s faces in this photograph.
From source C we can obtain reliable knowledge supporting that the evacuation was well organized, “When we got to the station the train was ready”. Although it does suggest that the organization was good, it also supports that the children did not know where they were going, or why they were being separated from there family. This could have led to the morale of the families falling as they were split up. Again this source is only from one perspective, only showing one-person thoughts and feelings of the evacuation that possibly could be led by the interviewer. The source only covers the feelings of a select group of people and so does not give a very good overview. The source also does not tell you the age of the children because attitudes may differ with age.
Source D is very similar to source B, not much detail is provided to describe where it came from or when it was taken. It shows a lot of children smiling about, what is meant to show their views of the evacuation. It is a primary source but it is limited by the fact that it is issued by the government, mostly likely to be used as propaganda supporting the evacuation.
Source D is a photograph of evacuees having a bath. It shows them all to be very happy and is a very positive picture towards evacuation as the children are having a good bath and a good time. It is a useful source as it is a photograph and so is a snapshot of the event and is taken at the time of the event although, it also has the same restrictions as source B, as the photograph could be staged and it does not show everybody’s perspective of the event as some children may not have enjoyed being in the country and some may not even have had the privilege of using a bath.
Sources E and F are both limited to their reliability. It is perhaps a coincidence that they are both from interviews in 1988 with very little detail about either source, rather like Source C as well. Source F however breaks down the stereotyping between the evacuees; this source displays what the possibilities of foster homes and families some evacuees would get.
Source F is an interview in 1988 with someone who was an evacuee in 1939. The source is unclear in its position towards evacuation, it talks of the prejudice against people living in the town, as many believed that all evacuees ate fish and chips out of newspaper and did not know where milk came from. It also shows that it was just as upsetting for a higher-class child to find itself in a slum. It is unclear of its ideas on the war as it is more focused on what the general picture of the different communities was and how it would be better if they were changed.
Source E can be identified to be biased, although this source is biased, it is first hand knowledge and I know there were similar circumstances involving the children evacuees and their ‘host family’. Source E is also limited to its reliability. We do not know when the source was exactly taken and most importantly we do not know what the original question to the source was. It states that the evacuees had filthy habits and urinated on walls around the house and despite being told not to, ignored the host family. It shows a disgusting side to the evacuees and shows up their ill-mannered behaviour as well as filthy habits and consequently does not support the evacuation. Although the interview took place in 1988, a long time after the actual event and so some information may have been forgotten changed or exaggerated in people’s minds over time. This source does not agree with the interpretation ‘ evacuation was a great success’. This is because the disobedience of some of the inner-city children became a concern and a future problem for the government during and after the evacuation.
Source G is an extract form a novel about children that have been evacuated to the countryside. It is not biased for or against the evacuation, as the extract doesn’t contain any views on what the author’s opinions were. It is less reliable than other sources as it is a novel because the information in novels can be exaggerated or biased to improve the storyline. It may also be exaggerated because it is supposed to entertain readers and therefore not supposed to be used as a reference book. It is also written for children so information may have been left out or simplified to suit the needs of the children for their understanding and enjoyment. The novel was also written in 1973, nearly 30 years after the war so the resources used by the author may have been biased or have left out vital information or the author may have left information out that they found in their research to improve the story.
Although the extract does give a good account, from my own knowledge, of people’s opinions, some of the adults in the countryside, not all of them though, believed that everyone that lived in cities lived in slums and that they were poor as a kind of prejudice. But the source only shows what it was like for children in middle and upper classes and not what it was like for the working class.
The aims of source H are clearly for propaganda, with the intension of advertising that, offering your assistance to foster children was ‘helping with the war effort’. It can be seen to be bias because of the frequent amount of questions and phrases that are asked on the advertisement, such as “Wont you be one of them?” and “You will be doing a real service for the nation”. As source H has been produced by the secretary of State, ‘entrusted’ by the government, people are urged to offer their assistance for fostering the children in the evacuation. By issuing this advertisement the government is suggesting that they need more, or as much help as possible with fostering the evacuees. This advertisement, issued by the government, is therefore not agreeing with the interpretation the “evacuation was a great success”.
Source I is an extract from a mass observation survey in May 1940. It is an interview with a Southend father with a seven-year-old boy. He is very anti-evacuation because he says that the places they are sending the evacuees cannot cater for the children and that they were starving before the war. I believe that this source is very opinionated as an opposition to the evacuation. He also states that if he got killed there are people in the town to look after him, i.e. family and friends, but no one would take him in the country.
The source can be regarded reliable as it was written in 1940, at the time of evacuation and is from the father of a child that should be evacuated from the town. It also gives us an idea of the thoughts of some of the people at the time of the event, and that they knew little about other parts of the country that was truthful. It also does agree with my knowledge because some parents were apprehensive of sending their children away and thought they would be better off looking after them despite the threat of air raids, although many parents did send their children away as they believed this to be the safer option.
From my own knowledge I know that it was possible that many people might have been in the situation as source I. I know that this number of people with this opinion would probably been the minority of parents with children. I know this because a large amount of children and some women, approximately 3 million, were moved to safety from the inner city areas. These numbers agree with the interpretation “evacuation was a great success’.
Source J is a collection of short videos from the Ministry of Information on evacuation in this country. All of the videos are very positive about the evacuation and overall tend to support it in the eyes of the viewer. They also look at some of the drawbacks of the evacuation but also show how it works out in the end and why it is still a very good thing. It also shows an interpretation of what happened in other countries as well, telling that they were too slow to react and so their towns were destroyed and children killed, urging on the parents to evacuate their children before they are hurt.
Source J is useful as all of the videos are from the beginning of the Second World War so they were taken at the time of the event but video footage is usually staged and so is likely to only give one interpretation of the story. The videos are also quite obviously acted out as the actors are reciting scripts and the children are abnormally well behaved and enthusiastic, show that it is most likely to have been staged to give the viewer the desired impression of the evacuation and was probably used as propaganda to encourage evacuation especially as none of the children look like they would have come from the inner city slums as they are too clean and well dressed.
The three films, “Westward Ho”, “Living With Strangers” and “Village School” all have explanations for the evacuation. “Westward ho” and “Living With Strangers” both give the explanation of saving the future generation of children, which was one of the original objectives of the British government. The third video, “Village School”, concentrated on showing how the children got on well with the foster parents in the country. However this was not always the case.
Although the videos do agree with my knowledge and the interpretation ‘the evacuation was a great success’, but there were a few differences between the two types of people and disagreements, yet the videos do not show the more unhappy children and some of the poor conditions they had to live in and then have to work for their living there is also no indication in the videos of the children ever misbehaving, which their have been reports to say that they did. This is because only the positive side of the evacuation wants to be shown by the Ministry of Information and the government.
The evacuation was also a success in other ways from my own knowledge. Many people got involved with helping with the evacuation, which led to the prevention of the number of casualties from increasing, another of the British government’s original clauses for evacuation. This was the main theory for saving the next generation of children. Another success of the evacuation was that in the long run it helped to develop the difference in class between the rich and the poor. The Beveridge Report also helped analyse the situation in the economical difference.
The evacuation was not a success in the ways of some of the parents were reluctant to allow their children to be evacuated. This was due to the fear that the children would be sent to conditions as bad or worse. Another unsuccessful challenge for the evacuation was the clashes of lifestyle and especially the class difference. Country people were shocked by the living conditions and attitudes of some of the evacuees from the towns and cities.
In conclusion, the evacuation had many attributes as well as many limiting factors. At first the evacuation methods were slow because there was not enough foster families found in the first six months. The sources A to I manage to show both sides of the argument, for and against evacuation. The government then set up lots of schemes and promotional media about evacuation to try and encourage everyone to support the evacuation. Some parents sent their children away, but some people were bound to have bad experiences or see that there would be disagreements between the differences in lifestyle between the two communities.
The evacuation was a success in the sense that the British government managed to evacuate the majority of children out of the cities and so helped save the future generations of the whole country, rather than losing them in the German air raids. Nevertheless I can also see that there was a bad side to the evacuation. There were major differences between the evacuees and host families causing friction, and some people were unconvinced by the evacuation and did not send their children away therefore the policy of evacuation may not have been enforced well enough.
The many different attitudes to the evacuation led to many inconveniences for foster families and the evacuees. From this the British government learnt the importance of making the difference in economic class irrelevant to a modern society. The evacuation had a lot of enthusiastic support and had to climb over some obstacles to make it a success in many of its aims.
