Alan Jeffreys: “It was the first time the government had organised an evacuation scheme. There had been aerial bombardment in 1917 with the Gotha raids and people had evacuated from the cities then but there'd be no government scheme in place. School-age children were evacuated, pregnant women, mothers with young children, and the disabled and also their carers and helpers, and teachers as well. The evacuation between 1939 and 1945 amounts to the biggest mass migration of British history.” To smaller towns and villages in the countryside. Some children were sent to stay with relatives outside in the countryside, but others were sent to live with complete strangers. Across the country throughout the war and particularly in three separate waves of 1939, 1940 and 1944, children, mothers and vulnerable citizens left their homes, not knowing where they would end up, who with, or for how long. Luggage had to be limited. Parents were issued with a list detailing what their children should take with them when evacuated. Though the list was short for such a journey, in fact many families struggled even to provide their children with all the items listed.

As well as the huge logistical challenge for the government, towns, families, and volunteers, evacuation was an emotional upheaval, distressing for both children and parents. Evacuation was also entirely voluntary, so why did so many thousands so readily sign up before the war had even started?My pal John Parker had what we thought was a very cushy billet.He was put on a farm with a childless couple who looked after him very well. Maybe it was a bit too well, because they never let him out to play….every Friday night they gave him a big spoonful of Brimstone and Treacle to keep him regular….When I pulled John’s leg about not seeing him to pay with at the weekends, he said he was too busy going to the loo all day.” Some Saturdays we would go the Whitby on the bus and have a look around the shops. At Christmas I had some nail varnish and I wrote to Santa asking him for a new dress because I

The choice facing parents to send their children on a train into the unknown did not come easily, but the option to keep them at home was even worse. How and why did these parents make this choice? Billeting officers were responsible for helping to find homes for the evacuees. Householders in the country who billeted (housed) city children were given money by the government. There were no big bombing raids on Britain in the first months of the war (know as The Phoney War) as a result by early 1940 many children had returned home.How was life in the country different to life in the city? e.g. fresh air, animals, peaceful, less traffic Evacuation on this scale had never been attempted by the government before but it was their task to safely transport millions across the country. So, how was this mammoth task accomplished? Our school was 1½ miles away up a steep hill and sometimes this lady who had a three wheeler car used to give 6 of use a lift to school. We all used to wonder how the car got us all up the banks with all our weight. It was just a small village school and we had 2 classes in the hall. One class facing one way and the other facing the other way. Alan Jeffreys: “In the interwar period, especially in the 1930s, the great fear was of aerial bombardment. The MP Stanley Baldwin said in 1932 and the bomber will always get through and so this was one of the great fears across the nation in the interwar period.”

Alan Jeffreys: “One of the quite important legacies of evacuation and definitely goes on to affect government legislation even during the war but certainly in the Labour government after 1945 was that evacuation drew attention to the economic and social deprivation that really existed in inner cities in the 1930s, and this really came to the fore through evacuation.” Within the next three days, 1.5 million evacuees were sent from cities and towns into rural areas considered safe, and over the course of the war around 4 million people left their homes. It was a huge logistical exercise that required tens of thousands of volunteer helpers. In some instances, a child's upbringing in urban poverty was misinterpreted as parental neglect. On the other hand, some city dwellers were bored in the countryside or even used for tiring agricultural work.Altogether we enjoyed our time being an evacuee and it was a lot of fun. It was all new living in a café and then a real castle, but loved our home best. We set off for the railway station and met all our school friends and teachers, it was exciting because you had to be rich to go on holiday, so not many people went.

At last the train stopped and we all got out and got into coaches, which took us to a big hall, where we shouted our names out then you went to your teacher in the corner of the room. As we were all leaving we were given 2 carriers of food to give to the landlady whose house we were going to live in. The British government was worried that a new war might begin when Hitler came to power in 1933. They were afraid that British cities and towns would be targets for bombing raids by aircraft. These extracts from letters sent by a mum to a girl called Delia, who was evacuated from London to the country.

IWM SHOP

Interviewer: “I was going to ask if you had ever thought whether had you children they would be evacuated? You've seen it as a child, what would it be like as a parent?” When we lived at the castle it was very cold and we didn’t like it, after about six weeks we came home. Mary Whiteman: “Mostly the school children went straight to the training college and then were taken, met by billeting officers who offered to find them homes, and it does credit to the town to say that that first night everybody had somewhere to go. And they just counted up the rooms that was the idea you've in the old days, you count how many rooms and how many people.” Evacuation to Parents Important Notice1939-1945, Central Office of Information, catalogue reference INF 13/171 (4)