When the children were sent away to their assigned villages, they were immediately sent from the train station to the nearest large public building. From these centres, families came and chose the evacuees they wanted to adopt, as a result of this it was generally the small girls who went last and the older and noisier boys who were left behind. This was embarrassing and sometimes demeaning for those who were left until last. They sometimes had to be taken round several houses before they were accepted and therefore would have made their experience and reaction to the policy of evacuation worse. There were a small number (relative to the amount of people evacuated) who were abused by those who took them in, mentally and physically. It is however, not known how many were abused as some are only beginning to talk of their experiences now.
Some children that were sent away from inner cities and impoverished families found the country life a happy experience because once they had adapted to the lifestyle they found they were given as much food as they wanted. Also, the food and conditions were in some cases a lot better than those they left behind. In these cases, the evacuees responded well to the evacuation and adapted and enjoyed their time. A former evacuee, Michael Caine said, “I went on to enjoy my halcyon days over the next six years” about his stay on a farm in Norfolk. This of course cannot be said for all evacuees who came from impoverished backgrounds.
The majority of those who were evacuated knew nothing of the country life and traditions, and in some cases were so adapted to inner city life that they acted as normal when evacuated to their new homes and did not know when they were offence their hosts. This often led to misunderstanding and problems between evacuees and host families. I some extreme cases inner city boys were found urinating on the walls, which is what they were used to at home because they couldn’t afford a bathroom. The majority of evacuees came from London and at that time poverty was widespread in the slums of London and therefore accounts for a large amount of evacuees original homes and poverty.
However it was not only the lower classes that were evacuated. The middle and upper classes were subject to evacuation as well. Some upper class children were unhappy with their evacuation because they were moved to homes much les civilised and well off than theirs, and this downgrade in living standards caused some resentment toward the policy of evacuation in Britain. This could not be said for all upper class children as some, like their lower class counterparts, adapted well to evacuation and others did not.
Stereotypes cannot be put on classes and ages of evacuees, and their reactions to evacuation because it is a more complex and individual issue as to their reaction to the policy of evacuation. It is fair to say that from all the different lasses and ages of those evacuated, some reactions were good and some bad. However some reactions are not known to this day, because some are only just beginning to speak on the subject of their experiences as those who were abused.
Tom Murphy
