How was the evacuee programme managed in WW2?

[DetailMouse]

Just thinking about the proposed refugee scheme and personally, expecting that there'll be very little take up. I feel very sorry for all involved but not enough to share my home. I'll try and "do my bit" but it won't involve taking strangers in.

To our modern sensibilities the evacuee programme seems almost impossible. Send small children away to stay with strangers? Accept strangers' children into your home and be responsible for their wellbeing (and discipline?)

Was an incentive offered? Did host families get a contribution towards cost? Did the children's families have to contribute? Was it compulsory to send your child and/or to host if you had space?

My gran always spoke fondly of "their" evacuee (gran was also a child at the time) and kept in touch through letter writing until she died, but there was always an air of superiority about having taken in this poor child. That child was probably well cared for, but there must surely have been 100s who weren't? Was any "safeguarding" done?

And, if we house refugees with host families, what checks will be done to make sure they're not being exploited or harmed in any way? I'd love to think everyone who takes them in is doing it out of human kindness, but we know that won't be true in every case

The host family were given the children’s ration books, I don’t know about money.

There was also a private evacuation programme to other commonwealth countries. My dad ended up in Canada. However it was halted after the sinking of the City of Benares.

www.thehistorypress.co.uk/articles/the-evacuation-of-children-during-the-second-world-war/#:~:text=It%20became%20compulsory%20for%20homes,sixpence%20for%20any%20subsequent%20 children.

I think it was compulsory to host.
I think the person in charge assessed how many you could take and then that's what you got. From films (eg Goodnight Mr Tom) there was some 'choice' when the evacuees arrived as in first come first served.

A lot of children who were evacuated in the war were seen as extra labour, so to many families that was the incentive

@WindyPopPops

A lot of children who were evacuated in the war were seen as extra labour, so to many families that was the incentive

I think that would be true for older boys, not so much young girls.

iirc It was the state of many of the evacuees which brought about housing improvements in London post war.

www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/91/a3917991.shtml
This is my mil who has sadly no longer here with us

Yes, of course @TeenPlusCat that was indeed the case. Those who were seen as the strongest were chosen first
Sad as it was farmers needed strong workers to replace the workers they'd lost to go to war
Food still needed to be put on the table for the country

@bruffin

www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/91/a3917991.shtml This is my mil who has sadly no longer here with us

It doesn't say it, but her sister was starved which is one of the reasons they were bought home

Wow @bruffin!

@bruffin how interesting, thank you for sharing.

Host families had to take kids in if they had space, unless they could come up with a good reason not to (kind of like Jury service, its compulsory but some will get out of it).

For the children, I think there was a huge amount of "luck of the draw" in who they got placed with.
Some children were placed with lovely families and had fond memories of the war, some were placed with families who treated them very cruelly. In those days physical "discipline" was accepted, so physical abuse of evacuees sometimes happened (and there wasn't a lot that could be done to stop it, as unless it crossed a line it wasn't even illegal I don't think). Some children were sexually abused, but it wasn't discussed.

My grandmother and her siblings were split up and went to different families (I don't think they were even in the same area).
Her brother had a great time, kept in contact with the family afterwards. My grandmother had an awful time, but has never really spoken about it in any detail. Throughout her adulthood she had what would now be considered MH difficulties, but was not diagnosed with anything. I suspect this could well be connected to being separated from parents and siblings at a very early age, and spending several years being "cared" for by strangers who didn't want her.

Sadly, my grandmother was never very close to her parents and siblings even after the war ended and they went home. Those years disrupted the bond between them.

The most upsetting fact I read about evacuees is that when the war ended, some were never claimed again by their parents! In some cases due to death, but in some cases they were just abandoned.

There is a tendency to view the past through rose tinted spectacles, and much of the propaganda that was necessary during the war effort persists in our cultural memory. It annoys me when people say things like "we all coped in WW2" etc. Actually, not everyone did "cope" and many of the evacuees were not "OK".

My gran had two little evacuees in her home too. She spoke fondly of them and they were well cared for but she said 'they hadn't learned their table manners because they were from Glasgow'. Massive lols at the time but in todays world that's an unacceptable attitude.

Lots of children were used as labour and much worse. But for some it opened up new worlds and changed their lives immeasurably for the better.

There's just no way we can line kids up on railway platforms now and ask random locals which ones they like the look of.

Was an incentive offered? Did host families get a contribution towards cost? Did the children's families have to contribute? Was it compulsory to send your child and/or to host if you had space?

The children's families were supposed to send money to pay for the keep of the children. Obviously in practice this was piecemeal and not always reliable for a number of reasons. Host families I think did receive some money but really it did often end up being them who shouldered the cost of keeping the evacuees. The "extra pair of hands" was also welcome though and it is true that many evacuees were put to work - but not necessarily more so than the children of the families themselves or more than they would have been expected to work at home.

There's a children's (fiction) book called The Sky is Falling, by Kit Pearson, about children evacuated to Canada; it talks a little about some of the checks that were done on the homes and how the children were getting on etc. It doesn't sound like a lot of safeguarding! Of course it's only fiction but based on research. I suspect even that would be more than what might have been able to be done for the much larger groups of evacuees who stayed in the UK.

In my family, 4 children were evacuated to different areas, I think it was arranged by the schools there (croydon). Tragically both parents died during the war and the kids were then looked after by different family members.
Under 5s were sent with their mum. I found this out at the Bletchley Park museum, much to mine and mum's amusement. Her mother had always said she hadn't sent my mum and her sisters as if she were going to die, they should all die together (!). In reality, she had no intention of going to live anywhere with strangers. She stayed in London with my grandad, her mum and her mother in law.

There's just no way we can line kids up on railway platforms now and ask random locals which ones they like the look of.

Maybe not, but this was literally happening in Berlin with Ukrainian refugee families last week. Needs must, and all that.

My dad was born in 1936 and lived in a home counties village.

They had two children stay with them. One didn’t work out because he kept stealing what little they had and running away. The other was a little girl who he kept in touch with until she died in the late 1990s, he was a godfather to her children.

My grandmother used to tell me horror stories of how some of the girls especially were treated. There were a couple of let’s say, not so nice people that took them on - other families didn’t think they were safe with them and so just went and removed the children to look after themselves.

My dad and my grandmother both gated people looking at the war days with with rose tinted glasses. My gran in particular used to say, “do you think people stopped being terrible
to each other just because there was a war on?”

@Flatandhappy and @WindyPopPops
It was written by children from local schools to my MIL

My DM was at the other end. She lived in Cheltenham during the ear. Her father worked on the land so wasn't conscripted and they had refugees from Czechoslovakia. She was 10 years younger than my MIL and her schooling wasn't affected like MIL. I was taking to a friend and her DM was a child in the war and had very little education as well. I think there were a lot of girls came out of the ear barely able to read and write from what I can gather

@itisyourbirthdayKelly my nan used to say the same. She said people didn't share what they had and would chuck you under a bus for an ounce of meat and an egg.
She was 19 when the war started and had 3 under 5 when it ended. She was very realistic about how it affected her life and loved buying us grandchildren new clothes and toys because she literally scraped by on what she could make and rations.

I think as well, on my husbands side, they went to stay with family which also meant that the family were releived of having to take in strangers.

It wasn't compulsory to send your children away, but it was strongly encouraged. Teachers were all evacuated with their pupils, so any children who stayed behind had no school to go to.

My mother was evacuated to a mining village in the Midlands. The host families had previously had evacuees from Birmingham, and had been quite shocked at the condition of the children. These host families lived in two up two down cottages with the loo at the end of the garden, and the men were all miners. So don't assume negative attitudes to evacuees were all down to middle class snobbery.

My mother became very fond of her host family, and still speaks of them with great affection.

My mum and her sister were evacuated. Unusually, their mum, my gran, went with them. The school asked some mothers to go along to in order to help out. My gran was friends with the family who housed them for the rest of her life. I’m not sure how long they were gone for, though.

My aunts were sent away, and I don't think it was very nice for them. My mum (who was much younger than them and born during the war) said they wouldn't really talk about it.

I wonder if it was slightly more acceptable then as it seems that commonly happened pre war in other circumstances anyway? My great great grandparents were largely from Glasgow, but were brought up in the highlands … my great great grandfather and grandmother brought up several dozen children from Glasgow whilst living in the middle of nowhere . Lots of ‘fostering out’ and adoption . Even those with living parents . My gran thinks it was something to do with clean air . I think even my great gran (born 1917) was fostered out at one point; I think abuse was quite commonplace unfortunately .

Certainly I know my great x twice grandmother was moved from Glasgow workhouse to highlands aged 8ish with four other children, to live with a stranger in her 70s, sent out to employment age 11 or 12 (domestic service) and was walking miles alone to and from work. She married and settled in the highlands and had a large family, fortunately, but my gran remembers being told how initially she was very lonely and unhappy .

So I wonder if it when it came to evacuation for the war it didn’t seem such an alien idea !