Overall I think that source B is the most useful for information about the start of the children’s journey. This is because it is a photograph so it shows precisely what is happening also it shows us what happened at the start, they had to walk to the station along with all the other children and were accompanied by adults. It also shows their expressions so we can gain some knowledge of whether they were happy or sad.
- Source G is evidence about evacuees. It can be described as being both reliable and unreliable.
Source G is from Carrie’s War which was a novel about evacuees. It can be described as useful as it had some reference of what some evacuees went through. However it is fiction which means it was made for entertainment and doesn’t have any facts in it, it was written about 40 years after evacuation had taken place so the author can not be certain about events that took place and if it is meant for evidence about evacuees then does this story give an account of what all evacuees went through?
I don’t think this source is reliable for information about evacuees as it was written along time after the event, it is fiction not fact and it doesn’t give a true impression of what all evacuees went through.
- “Evacuation was a great success”. Some people agree with this statement others do not. The main aim of evacuation was to take children to a safer place away from the bombing to reduce the amount of possible deaths. Evacuation can be seen as both a success and as a failure.
It was a success as its aim was to remove children form possible, danger it achieved this by re-homing them in places such as the countryside, away from where the bombing was taking place.
Also it made the people in Britain more aware of what living conditions were like in the cities, foster parents were appalled at the state of the children they were looking after. This quote from source E shows how the foster parents were shocked at the children’s behaviour. “The children went round the house urinating on the walls, they stank the place to high heaven”.
Evacuation could also be seen as a success as some of the children had a positive experience in the countryside, they saw it as an adventure. Source D shows evacuees at bath time, and although the baths are crowded, all the children are smiling and look as though they are enjoying themselves.
From my own knowledge I know that Eric Buchanan enjoyed his stay with his foster family, the quote “It was marvellous” shows how he thought it was wonderful being in the countryside.
Another advantage of evacuation was that it freed women up so they could help with the war work.
Evacuation can also be seen as a failure for the following reasons.
The organisation wasn’t very good as parents didn’t know where their children were and the quote “we hadn’t the slightest idea where we was going” from source C shows how the children didn’t know themselves where they were going.
Many of the children had a bad experience during their evacuation. One example is Michael Cane. The quote “we came out of the cupboard and the woman hit us with a tennis racket” shows how some children were abused by their foster parents. Also some of the foster parents just did it for the money and didn’t bother to look after the children properly.
Another example of pore organisation was the fact that the children were split from their families, their siblings would often be on the other side of the countryside and the children may have never seen their families again.
Some of the foster parents had not been prepared for the state in which the evacuees were. They were shocked at the state they were in and didn’t know how to cope. Two examples of this are source E and source F. The quote from source E “filthy habit of the children” and the quote from source F “common view of evacuees” show how the children were perceived as filthy, dirty and horrid children.
As a conclusion to this, I don’t think evacuation was a great success as they did not achieve a lot of what they wanted to achieve, a lot of the children had bad experiences, it was poorly organised and many of the foster parents didn’t care about how they treated their children.
