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

I know that an English branch of my family had a boy who was sent to Wales and really set to work on the farm he was housed on.

@spring2022

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 !

This is true. My Dad, born during the war, spent several months living with relatives in Devon in the late 40s. He says he's never really known why he was sent or why he had to come back, but that living on the farm was the happiest time of his childhood, despite his hosts (older brother and wife) being very harsh disciplinarians.

DGM was a teacher in the east end and was evacuated to the countryside with her pupils after the school was bombed, so they would at least have had one independent known adult to keep an eye on them. I wish I'd asked her more about that side of it while she was alive - I must ask her children while I can whether she told them any stories.

So interesting reading this thread. My mum was evacuated with her toddler brother. She was about 4/5. The family they went to were awful - they had a daughter who stole my mum’s one toy she’d taken. My Nan visited them and saw the awfulness so took them back home. My mum was in central london for the rest of the war.
My Dad had a wonderful time in Lincolnshire and ate food he’d never seen or heard of. Him and his brothers were treated like royalty by all accounts. Unimaginable until now isn’t it, that we would allow our children to leave us and go and live a different life.

My Grandad was evacuated, as were some of his siblings. The older ones stayed in London as they were already working.

Grandad was 6 years old. He was placed with a lovely family. He says he used to see his sister in the street and she wasn't so lucky, but he's never expanded. I guess it's too painful to talk about.
His parents were both killed and his 'evacuee family' kept him and raised him.

My mum grew up not knowing any family on her fathers side. Until about 14 years ago when we had a massive family get together thanks to people finding each other on ancestry. Grandad managed to meet some of his siblings again for the first time. I believe 12 of the 13 have been 'found'. He didn't really remember them, or they him but it was an emotional time all the same.

It must have been so hard to coordinate the whole programme. Not everyone had telephones, there was no safeguarding systems like now. It was just a case of "you have a spare room, here's a child".

My mother and her sister were evacuated. They ended up staying with a family living in a town which had a major train station. The house was very different to what they were used to, newspaper spread over the table in place of a tablecloth, no running water and the toilet was a bucket with a wooden seat over it housed in a shed down the bottom of the garden. The family had a male lodger who according to my aunt "had funny eyes" and stared at them all the time. They took care not to be alone with him at any time. Luckily, my GF came home on leave, took one look at the set up and brought them straight back home.

My mum was sent from Central London to Durham with her mum because she was a toddler. They were billeted with a family who had no choice and had to hand over the ration books.
They only stayed a couple of weeks because gran was so worried about her three adult daughters back in London.
(They all survived, thank goodness).

With WWII evacuations people kind of knew it was coming.
War breaking out wasn’t much of a surprise in a lot of places. My grandad joined the RAFVR in 1938 because he was fairly sure that war was going to come and he wanted to know what he was doing, and get a choice which division he joined.
From what my Granny said to me, Operation Pied Piper was all set up to go, and adults (and probably older children) were aware that with the declaration of war then there would be mass evacuations.
Host families did get paid: 10 shillings and sixpence (53p) for the first unaccompanied child, and 8 shillings and sixpence for any subsequent children. That’s about £25 a week. Which, bearing in mind some children arrived with almost nothing, meant that host families often were out of pocket.
The traditional line up on the station and pick happened. But also there was often someone sent round villages to decide what spare space they had. They paid no attention to requests, and there was no appeal.
My Granny told of one family who had 6 children in one room were told there was space on the floor for two more. Not provided with beds/mattresses etc. In the reality the children squashed up and had more in the beds, and actually that was an evacuation that worked well, they all got along, but it easily could not have worked.
Sometimes it worked out well, other times it was disastrous.

It was, at the time a needs must. We can look back and say “safeguarding” but at that point it wasn’t something they thought about, nor did they have time to vet people. It’s a bit like throwing your baby (for someone to catch) out of the third floor window when there’s a fire. You don’t want to, it isn’t safe, you wouldn’t do it in normal times, but at that point it’s the best option.
People didn’t know whether Hitler was going to invade tomorrow. They knew what he was capable of. They wanted to keep the children as safe as they could. If you had the choice, what would you choose?

People didn't have a choice and while I hope most were good to the children forced to stay with them, sadly a great deal of harm was done to some.

Thanks @MintMocha, I shall look that up
There's a really good book about this called No time to wave goodbye, if anyone is interested
It's first hand accounts from children evacuated during WW2. It really shows the good the bad and the ugly and how differently their lives changed
It has a memorable story from Michael Caine too, well worth a read

I researched the evacuation experience of two schools for my degree. (Liverpool to wales/Cheshire)

60%+ of the kids had returned home within a fortnight.
In November the council asked one of the schools to reopen in Liverpool, as so many of the children were there.

Despite being planned well in advance and rehearsed. It was organised chaos on the day. Areas expecting unaccompanied infant children, got mothers and babies, or teenagers etc.

The come and pick a child slave auction, portrayed in films was pretty true.

I read a historian recently, who labelled it a 'peadophile's charter'.

My mother told me that her memories of being evacuated are dim, but she knows that she was locked outside all day and had to go to the toilet in the garden. She was unhappy, cold and miserable and her parents took her back home to the city. (They couldn't leave as Grandad was a skilled shipyard worker.)

She was 4.

My Dad was evacuated to Wales and he remembered it as a really happy time in his life (away from his nightmare dad, I suppose)

We don't have a spare room but would take someone like a shot if we did.

DF was evacuated to Wales with his cousin. They were in the same village together with other pupils from their school. He was really lucky that he was with a lovely family. He stayed in touch for the rest of their lives - we had an annual visit as part of an autumn half term holiday to "little aunty in Wales". I have a much treasured blue and white dish she left to me because I liked it as a small child.

During national service DF was a hill runner for the army - he said he was the slowest running up and the fastest running down due to his evacuee childhood running up and down the slag heaps.

DM was too young to be evacuated and was sent to a family farm so DGM could continue nursing. They had a couple of Kindertransport sisters. DM said they were incredibly snotty about how "primitive" the farm was (and it was actually a lovely house) and went on endlessly about how they had fled in fur coats.

From the BBC archive:

These are the instructions we were given when being evacuated to Hampshire from our school in Balham in 1939.

London County Council
Children’s Care (School) Committee

Spring 1939

HEARNVILLE SCHOOL
SUGGESTED PREPARATION FOR EVACUATION PARTY

1 All children to wear a Hearnville badge on hat except Secondary and Central School pupils who must wear their own.

2 All children to wear strong pair outdoor shoes.

3 All children to wear either overcoat or Mackintosh.

4 Girls to wear their school tunics and blouses.

5 Every child must take:- One complete change of underclothes, two nightdresses or pyjamas, a second pair of shoes, handkerchiefs, face-cloth, soap, towel, comb, toothbrush.

6 As the warm days are coming, each girl should if possible include in her luggage an extra blouse and a blazer for outdoor wear, and if she possesses one, a blue summer school frock.

7 Boys should include an extra pair of knickers.

8 Our instructions are that blankets should not be taken, but luggage must be carried on shoulders in knapsack or haversack.

9 Gas mask (ink name on webbing) in correct container, must be carried either in knapsack or attached to it, or on shoulder cord.

10 A packet of food. This must be easily accessible either in top of rucksack or in separate satchel or shoulder bag. Suggested contents:
Packet of milk biscuits or similar
Several small cheeses
Packet of sweet biscuits
Two bananas, packet plain chocolate
Small unbreakable mug
Please avoid greasy or sticky food, apples, oranges, and liquids.

11 All clothes to be marked with name.

12 One luggage label (supplied by school) to be worn on cord round neck. One to be attached to knapsack or haversack.

13 Eldest child in each family should take stamped addresses envelope and paper. They will write when settled. If too young letter will be written by one of staff.

14 If parents wish, a little pocket-money may be carried in a safe place.

If notice of evacuation be given by wireless, children should arrive at school one hour before time given for evacuation. Children will assemble in their appointed classrooms and parents are asked not to enter the classrooms.

You were compelled to accept evacuees. An accommodation officer would be banging loudly on your door and shouting through your letter box if you didn't. It was a national emergency and you were fully expected to play your part.

Also worth searching for is the Children's Overseas Reception Board .

It wasn't just lone children who were evacuated although they made up the majority of evacuees. Mothers with babies/young children were evacuated together.

Girls would have been used for all of the manual house work too.

My grandparents were both evacuated from the East End and both ran away. No further details exist in the family lore, but both of them were absolute toe rags by the sounds of things.

My mother was evacuated to Fleetwood with her brother who was a little older. She was six. They were trooped into a hall and people came to choose them and a few would have taken the older brother but didn't want a six year old. However my uncle had been told by my grandmother not to go without his sister so kept hold of her hand. I think they had quite a nice family but they only went to school in the mornings and from what I could make out rather ran riot around the town in the afternoons. One of the teachers bought mum some new shoes as she kept running into the sea in hers and ruined them. They were both back in Salford with their parents within a few months.

My dad had a patch on his eye and he was left amongst the last 2 to be chosen. The other boy had a caliper on his leg. Nobody wanted them so the lady in charge ended up traipsing round the town knocking on doors for someone to take them in. He didn't talk as much about his experience but I don't think he was treated cruelly.

Goodnight Mister Tom is well known but another novel by the same author is Back Home about a girl who was evacuated to Canada age around 8 or 9 and comes back age 12 or so- having become a confident outgoing outdoorsy tween going through puberty, totally at odds to her English mother’s “stiff upper lip” repressed ways and they are essentially strangers to each other. It’s very poignant.

I must ask my mum the details
But my grandparents had two pre teen ( I think ) girls during the war,my uncle was born in 1939 and my mum was born in 1942
My Grandad failed the army medical due to congenital heart disease ,so served in the Home guard
The two girls were originally sent to live with a lone man in his 50,s which seems an odd choice ,but that didn't work out so they went to my Grandparents ,they stayed in touch untill my Grandma,s death
I imagine it could have been open to abuse .

I think they had quite a nice family but they only went to school in the mornings and from what I could make out rather ran riot around the town in the afternoons.

This was common, as in some small places there would be the same amount of evacuees as there were children already resident, so the schooling was in shifts - evacuees in the morning, local children in the afternoon. Or there wouldn't have physically been enough space for them all!

The number of "unclaimed" children at the end of the war was surprisingly small, once those who had lost parents altogether were taken into account. There were some, of course, but statistically it wasn't a large proportion. Most people were very keen to get their children back and children being sent back to cities too soon was a bigger problem.

It's one of those amazing times of history that we look back and say what were we thinking?
Children being sent out to the countryside and lined up to be chosen....farmers picked the sturdy looking older boys, the tired mum with a gaggle of toddlers picked an older girl. The snotty nose one smelling of wee not picked at all so ends up with the village spinster who knew nothing about children.
There are stories of places expecting mums and babies and ended up with a boys secondary school instead.
Siblings were often separated because although they travelled together with their school they were split by class and a train would stop at village A and Classes 2 and 3 get off, train then travelled to village B where Class 4 and 5 got off. Of course there would have been children in Class 2 whose sibling was in Class 5. Eldest would panic because they had promised their mum they would look after their siblings.
Good did come out of it though. People were shocked at some of the poverty the city children came from and that in turn helped form welfare change (and vice versa - children from nice middle class areas were horrified to find outside toilets and candles at night).
It's a historical mix of amazing it happened and slightly scary it happened.

My grandmother was evacuated with her mother and twin brother. They were only a few months old.
They ended up with a couple in their late 50s in Devon on a farm. I believe the couple also hosted two other teenager children.
Stayed for 4 years and spent the rest of their childhood and adult lives visiting their ‘grandparents’. They had four siblings who stayed in London as they were already adults ( they were last surprise babies born almost 20 years after the other children)

We live in a country where refugees are now heading from the Ukraine. We have signed up to host if needed. At the moment most are being hosted in the cities due to logistics and help available. We can pick vague ages, genders, and how many.