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| The Evacuation of Children from Southend, 2nd June 1940 by E.L. Gabain (1941) |
Thousands of children were evacuated during the Second World War. While some were warmly welcomed, as I discovered, others found themselves unwanted guests...
“I
went as a Cockney and came back speaking Yorkshire!” Londoner Rita
French, like so many other children in wartime, was evacuated from a
blitzed city to a new life in Yorkshire. In
1937 the British government published a booklet called The
Householder's Handbook
warning residents of large towns to consider sending 'children,
invalids, elderly members of the household, and pets...to relatives
or friends in the country' if war broke out. Between 1939 and 1945
around 3.5million people, mainly children, were evacuated through
Operation Pied Piper, some multiple times.
While
Yorkshire saw an influx of evacuee children, its own youngsters also
departed from Bradford, Sheffield, Leeds and Hull. Five-year-old
Mercy Matthews (née
Sword) was evacuated just ten miles from her home in Hull to North
Ferriby village, where she lived until 1947. “I can still see
myself with the other children – perhaps 100 – in the village
hall,” she remembers. “I was one of the last to be 'chosen'.”
Thousands
poured into the county from further afield; the younger ones with
little idea of what was happening. In 1941 eight-year-old Hilary
Crane from Middlesex came to Higham, South Yorkshire, with her elder
sister. Their evacuation was last minute, and Hilary remembers taking
“very little...I wasn't allowed my doll or teddy bear, just a
change of clothes.”
Seven-year-old
Margaret MacIntyre from Kent felt unwelcome when she came to
Doncaster in 1942. She discovered that “people assumed that we came
from the dirty streets of London.” After a brisk medical inspection
on arrival, Margaret and the other children were put to sleep on a
mattress in a church hall. She
woke to find strangers walking round, choosing their evacuees.
Margaret and her younger sister were among the last to go, refusing
to be separated.
Evacuees
also
encountered a new “weird” language. When 12-year-old Gladys Hale
from Westminster came to Goole, with her mother and siblings in 1944,
she struggled to understand Yorkshire dialect. “When we arrived we
were given camp beds and blankets. I asked where to put them and the
woman said, 'Yonder lass'. I had no idea where that was!”
For
Gladys, life in Goole provided new opportunities. The family moved
into an empty house on Boothferry Bridge Road and Gladys went pea and
potato picking with her new classmates, who became her friends –
after calling her 'the foreigner' for a while. She flourished
at Goole Modern School: “There was a biology lab and a gymnasium.
It was ultra-modern, an early comprehensive. We could do gardening
and play hockey. I felt I wanted to learn.”
Derek
Goodman from Sussex, also enjoyed idyllic years with 'Uncle George
and Auntie Hilda' Jackson, a childless couple from Thurgoland, who
took in the Goodman siblings in 1941. “We used to go down to the
River Don and paddle. We just had to be back in time for tea.” Like
many other evacuees, the Goodman siblings kept in touch with their
foster parents after the war.
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However
welcoming families were, evacuees often experienced a culture shock.
Margaret MacIntyre and her sister came from a smart modern home and
were unsettled in the mining area of Doncaster. Their kind foster
mother tried to help, giving them a treat of strawberries for tea.
But when her miner husband returned from work, “all black, covered
in soot, with just his eyes peeping out,” Margaret's five-year-old
sister screamed, and couldn't settle. The sisters were moved to a
WVS spinster who lived in a house more like their own.
Others
felt unwanted in their new homes. Foster
parents were paid 10s 6d weekly for an evacuee, plus 8s 6d for
additional children, but some evacuees felt resented by their hosts.
In Higham, Hilary Crane was “physically sick with nerves,” and
worrying constantly that her parents would die in the Blitz. Hilary's
foster mother made her uncomfortable: “she kept saying that our
parents should send extra money for us, but they really couldn't
afford to.” As Hilary's foster family had very little room she
slept in the bath. “I was
fascinated by the bath, as we came from a cottage with no indoor
plumbing. The husband was a miner, so he got extra soap rations and I
opened up the cupboard to find it stuffed with soap.” Hilary's
hosts were also involved in the Salvation Army, and took her to “sing
on corners,” leaving her “a bit taken aback”.
Evacuees
were sometimes placed with less than suitable hosts, like Joan
Colclough,
evacuated
from industrial Middlesbrough to Hunmanby, a rural North Yorkshire
village. Her hosts were two elderly siblings with little experience
of young children and six-year-old Joan struggled to settle. “Their
lifestyle was completely different from home and I felt intimidated
by the quiet, controlled way of living. I remember my parents coming
to see me and whispering to them that I wanted to come home.”
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| A postcard sent home by evacuees suggests a reassuring idyllic country life |
Rita
French is another evacuee whose life was transformed in Yorkshire.
Living in hardship in Elephant and Castle, on the outbreak of war
Rita's mother sent her away to escape her docker father's alcoholism
as much as the bombs. Seven-year-old Rita went first to Cambridge,
but found her hosts cruel and prejudiced. Borrowing a
few pence from another child, she sent a letter home and her mother
came to collect her, although “she didn't have enough money for a
ticket, so she put me in the toilet with an orange to hide from the
ticket collector.”
Rita
then went to Sheffield. In the hall “everyone was chosen. I was the
last one there, looking forlorn. I suppose I was a scruffy-looking
kid.” But a woman named Mrs Boss took pity on her. For the first
time Rita had a normal life: “I
was clean and well-fed. She dressed me, sent me to a nice school and
took me out to whist drives and to see Lassie
Come Home.
I found out what better living was.”
At
the end of the war, Mrs Boss offered to adopt Rita, but, when
evacuation formally ended in March 1946, she went home to London.
However, she and many
other Yorkshire evacuees have a great affection
for their adopted county to this day, and some, like Derek Goodman,
still visit the graves of their foster parents to thank them.
With
thanks to James Roffey of the Evacuees Reunion Association and to all
the evacuees named in this piece who generously gave their time to be
interviewed.
The Evacuees Reunion Association
Formed in 1995 the ERA's mission is to preserve the stories of a generation of evacuees. Over 2,200 members worldwide attend events and receive a monthly magazine.
This article is published in Down Your Way magazine (October 2012)
Formed in 1995 the ERA's mission is to preserve the stories of a generation of evacuees. Over 2,200 members worldwide attend events and receive a monthly magazine.
