One thing that a historian could question when studying this source would be who actually was the source aimed at? And who was the interview with? The answers to these questions would help create a purpose for the source. It would need to be known to be able to analyse it properly, and decide whether it is useful or not. The source also is written as memories. There is over 40 years between the evacuation period and the time of the interview. Her memories of the experience may have changed and she may also have forgotten some details of her parting with her mother.
In conclusion to my analysis of the two sources, I believe that Source C is more useful to a historian studying the beginning of evacuation in Britain. It is a secondary source that uses hindsight, and also is told in a very unbiased view. This makes it a lot more reliable for a historian to retain evidence from it and be able to use it effectively. The government has most likely produced Source B for one purpose, to receive support from the public for evacuation. It has been made to be very bias towards one side, and is very staged. Because of these factors it would not be very useful to a historian.
- “ Source G is an extract taken from a novel. Is it reliable evidence about evacuees? Explain your answer using Source G and knowledge from your studies.”
This source is an extract from a children’s novel. It is a fictional story about children going through the evacuation process in Britain in the 1940’s. It was written in 1973 therefore it is a secondary source. As it has been written for children it is most likely a toned down version of events. It would used to entertain children and this is what its main purpose would be.
The story is about two children Nick and Carrie who are brother and sister, the source tells us of their first meeting with the woman who took them in, Miss Evans. Miss Evans wrongly assumes that the children haven’t got any slippers because they are evacuees. This sample of writing from the novel is showing children how evacuees where usually subjected to prejudice, as the people from the country usually assumed that the city evacuees where less well off. In some cases this was true but not always, which is what is trying to be portrayed here. The novel was written to entertain, educate and inform children about the evacuation process, and these were the main purposes for it being written.
Whether this source is reliable or not depends on knowing if the writer of the novel based the story on real events, or if Carrie was based on someone she knew or even herself. If it was a story based on real events, where these events recorded in a primary source such as a diary, or where they just memories? If the source of ideas for the novel where known, an accurate judgement could be made on how reliable the novel is to give evidence about evacuees. As the novel is only telling us about two evacuees we do not gain a bigger view on evacuees in Britain as a whole. This limits how reliable the source can actually be to a historian. Not all evacuees were treated the same, some with very little respect and care and others who had a good life as an evacuee.
I believe that this source is not very reliable to show a broad view of evacuees and their life. It only deals with two evacuees. If it was based on real events it is a very toned down version so that it will entertain children and inform them to a point about evacuation. For these reasons I do not think that it is reliable to gain information from.
3.) “Evacuation was a great success”. Do your agree or disagree with this
interpretation? Explain your answer using the sources and knowledge from
your studies.
When World War Two broke out in September 1939, evacuation plans for children were put into place straight away, with the advancing threat of air attacks from the Germans due to vast improvements in technology. This advance in technology meant that civilians were at more risk of being attacked than in World War One. The government needed to have a bigger control over the lives of the public.
Evacuation in Britain during the Second World War was not a success for everyone involved. It was a success for some, and it has been known for some to come out of the experience a lot better off than when they went into it, but also in a lot of cases it was a bad experience for the evacuees and could not be described as a ‘great success’.
Sources C, E, F and I are all interviews. They are all with different people who were involved in the evacuation process in some way. The interviewee in Source C, a teacher talks solely about her experience of leaving the station with the children from her school, and the unknown aspect of where they were going. ‘We hadn’t the slightest idea where we were going’. The reader of this interview would question how prepared the government and public where for the evacuation process to start. If the teachers who were accompanying the children in the process did not know where they were going, then it would seem that the government had not fully briefed the public and people involved about what would be happening. This questions how successful evacuation really was. The public had not been fully prepared for what was about to happen to the country. They had had propaganda presented to them, but no real information about evacuation, and what would happen to the children and teachers. All the information they had had was posters and campaigns to persuade the public to agree with evacuation.
Sources B and D are photographs most likely produced by the government to persuade the public to evacuate their children. They both show smiling children who are either, waiting to be evacuated or have been evacuated and are happy with what has happened to them. The government wanted support for this campaign, and wanted to gain the public’s trust that their children would be happy when evacuated. The main concern of parents and teachers were that the children would not be happy away from home or safe, and by producing material like sources B and D the government was trying to make the public believe that these fears that they had were only fears and were not going to be a reality when they evacuated their children.
Source E tells the reader of a mother of a host family. She took evacuees in and her experience is retold in an interview. This source is very negative about the evacuees, and agrees with the prejudice that all evacuees were common and rude. ‘The children went around urinating on the walls.’ From the behaviour of some evacuees shown here it makes the reader of the source question whether evacuation was successful or not. The statement, “Evacuation was a great success,” really does not apply here.
Source I is an interview with a father of a seven year old child in a survey about evacuation taken in May 1940, eight months after evacuation had started in Britain. The observer asks the father whether he will be evacuating his child and his opinion on evacuating children to the countryside. The father’s view is very against evacuation, as he believes that the children are best off with their own parents. This source clearly shows a firm opposition to evacuation, showing that not everyone agreed with the government’s plans.
The evacuation process was co-ordinated by the National Federation of the Woman’s Institutes. When the evacuees had reached their destinations they were taken to reception areas, these varied from being a local school, village hall or church. The children then were lined up and the ‘host’ families chose whom they were going to take in. People who took in evacuees received an allowance from the government, and many people took children in for this reason. This money was to pay for the evacuees and the food and other essentials they would need, but the reality of it was that a lot of the time this money was not spent on the evacuee.
During the period of evacuation there were many complaints to the National Federation of Women’s Institutes from the host families about the evacuees that they had taken in. Complaints included the children they had taken in had head lice, or no clothes other than the ones they travelled in. Complaints of conflict between the local children and the evacuees were also common.
Many long lasting results from evacuation surfaced after the process had finished. A great deal of woman were able to work because they had no children to look after, this helped greatly with the war effort. Also different social groups were brought together, and youngsters from the inner cities saw the countryside, most of them for the first time. But above all other results from evacuation the most important result was that evacuation saved thousands of lives. But as well as the good results that came out of evacuation, bad results also surfaced. Cases of abuse, neglect, and threatening behaviour towards evacuees became apparent, and also incidences of children coming back from evacuation with no family or home because they had either been killed during the air raids, or had been forgotten by their family, and were rejected.
Evacuation cannot be described solely as a great success as there were bad results that came from it as well as the good. Success was a case in some experiences, but there were also a lot of bad results were success could not be the word used to describe them.