My son thinks that children were evacuated during the pandemic

[Jourdain11]

Today my DS7 was learning about World War 2 in 'topic' and they covered evacuees. Apparently he stuck his hand up, "Oh, so they were sent away from London to the country to keep them safe? Just like we were in the lockdown?"

The teacher said that, no, children were not evacuated during lockdown. And he was quite incredulous that neither his teacher, nor any of his classmates, could remember this mass evacuation.

I have explained that he was not evacuated - he stayed with his grandparents for around a month (not in the country). But he is sure in his own mind that he was in fact evacuated for the duration. "Maybe for about a year."

I suppose he was only 4 at the time. But it got me to thinking that a lot of youngish children must have some fairly weird memories of Lockdown Britain!

@memorial I thought there was collective harm and am shocked by how tone deaf some of the comments here are.

Completely agree. It's disgusting actually. I remember waving my DP off to nightshift in ICU after 4 hours training (normally a surgical ward nurse, had no ICU experience) and wondering if today was the day he was going to get sick. Walking to and from work with not a soul on the streets. Seeing my next door neighbour out next door with the paddling pool while I was hanging up the scrubs on the washing line.

I remember driving to a local farm to collect veg and being scared in case the police stopped me. Contacting friend and colleagues using zoom or WhatsApp. It was a surreal time. I watched TV series about Boris and his handling of the pandemic recently and I found it really triggering.

My then 7 year old was slowly becoming agoraphobic. She had no interest in going out or seeing anyone. We couldn't get her to leave the house and I remember the first day back at school she cried because she didnt know how/want to interact with her peers. Now aged 9 and she is much better but sometimes gets anxious in big crowds.

My second dd was 4 and doesn't rememer a world before Covid but is now almost 7 and obssesed with hand sanitiser!

One thing I have noticed in general though is that all children instinctively sneeze into the inside of elbow!

What I remember is the blithe statements about how kids were resilient.

My younger DD will be 10 in a few weeks. She might say she doesn't remember much... but she still has trouble trusting plans won't change and is a bit funny about friendships (because friends can disappear at any time).

Her 7th birthday was the last "normal" day. That is the memory she can't forget... the world wasn't scary when she was six.

I remember the weekend before lockdown I had gone on a solo weekend away to prague, I felt so free as I'd never gone away be myself before. It was so surreal that days later I was barely allowed to leave the house. I have severe asthma and got to the point of almost agoraphobia, I didnt even contemplate going into a shop for month I only did online shopping. I find it hard to remember most of it now I think it's a trauma response that a lot of us have hence why it feels so long ago and like a dream.

I was given a piece of paper for work basically stating I had an exemption/reason to be out....I was never stopped but it felt so surreal that I had to carry around that letter just in case. It was always eerily quiet when I'd walk home as well, I used to finish at 10pm and there were loads of pubs and restaurants around my workplace so it was so weird how quiet it was then. Lockdowns were horrific for me and completley destroyed my mental health. I also couldn't afford to take time off work, and my workplace stayed open (it was a completely unnecessary job!), and some of the customers seemed to became really vile and abusive in that period as well. Nobody knew how bad the virus was and I had two very young children (one just 6 months old) to protect and it was terrifying.

I also remember my friend coming to stay one night as my bubble because I'm a single parent and was really struggling, my charming neighbours called the police 🙄

Oh sorry when you said "not in the country" I thought you meant not in this country ie abroad!

memorial
yes I totally agree with you xx

Another relieved mum here! DD was 6 and seemed to just get on with things. She FaceTimed friends and cousins and we were in a support bubble so still saw her grandparents and had her brother to play with. We had a large garden so she spent lots of time outside.

DS1 doesn’t remember it (he was 2) and nor does DS2 who was 5 months at the start of the first lockdown.

Life is weirdly the same for me as during lockdown mostly except going to the supermarket
I caught covid recently and it's basically showed me that I can't risk socialising which is shit

The thing that stuck with me was Southbank, almost empty on a Saturday morning as I walked along to get my vaccine. It was the first time I'd needed to be back in Central London and I took the time to talk along my normal haunts on the banks and whilst I wasn't alone, it was so quiet.

The thing I remember the most about lockdown was the fact it was the first time in my 42 years I developed
depression and anxiety, the anxiety wasn’t really to do with catching Covid but more about the control and losing freedom and worrying about how my children were coping mentally being stuck in their rooms all day doing online learning. I had to have CBT over the phone…I also had useless physio over the phone after being misdiagnosed as having a frozen shoulder!

Haha, no, I phrased that poorly!

I was diagnosed with a very aggressive type of blood cancer about a fortnight after lockdown started. Had to start chemo almost straight away and we couldn't think what to do with the children! Everything which could normally have been put in place was a non-starter. DH's parents offered to have them and I think they had quite a nice time. DS barely remembers that I was ill, which was the actual reason for his "evacuation". I can remember the first weeks of Covid/lockdown very clearly (especially the weeks leading up) but after that point it's totally superseded by everything else that happened!

I remember it was mothering Sunday and they were advising people not to visit their mums. We carried on with our plans and my daughter had a sleepover. I think then he announced a lockdown and I was actually worried we couldn't get her back home.

The rules! I am very bad with rules because I have ADHD and find any sort of instruction very confusing.

The number of hours you could go out to exercise, the number of people you could meet, the number of days you had to quarantine for...

I just ploughed through it all but it was grim wasn't it?

I regularly drive past the McDonald’s we queued an hour to get into. It was a joyous day out for me and my dc because we’d been nowhere and done nothing. It was like being on holiday. We still talk if it fondly now

For me lockdown was stressful, I'm a childminder, so had to allow children of keyworkers into my home, we couldn't go out anywhere, we had to stay in, in our little extended bubble, so my dd did have friends to play with , home schooling several children was difficult, but necessary, and I got told.off by my neighbours regularly for the children making a noise in the garden when they were trying to work from home.
I missed my friends and my family, none of whom live walking distance away.
I remember on my mum's birthday, thinking of excuses for driving to another town incase I was stopped then standing out in the garden chatting, it was horrible.

I did some weird shit in that first lockdown.

Rang some random old friends that I hadn’t spoken to for 10 years and will probably never speak to again either!

Took great joy in painting some stones.

Knitted a terrible scarf.

My main regret - and it is a huge one - is that I didn’t keep a diary. Goodness knows I had the time! But I suppose it didn’t feel, in the moment, as though there was anything to write about…

Well if he stayed with his grandparents for a month that may well have felt similar? So it's not an unfair analogy he is drawing

Going on an expedition for a PCR test in a random car park, trying to understand the instructions through a two masks and a closed window.

Buying discounted Easter eggs in July.

Those early days, before we were even wearing masks, when going to the supermarket involved snaking around the one way system, moving from spot to spot on the floor…

The interesting thing about your son's account is that it is kind of grounded in fact but gives a completely misleading impression. It makes me wonder how much history is just wrong in this sort of way.

Imagine a pre-printing press world, pre-internet, where monks were scribing away in monasteries. If your son lived to be 100 and the last survivor, he would have been repeating this story to generations of people who would have nothing else to contradict it. A whole swath of history would be misconstrued!

It was such a bizarre time.
Watching the horror unfold in Italy and New York
Talking to medical friends who'd had briefings on prioritising those most likely to recover and realising that if overwhelmed hospitals wouldn't even have the capacity to try to help those over 60.
The endless memes and silly jokes as the death rate inexorably rose.
The realisation that with Boris in charge we had to pray he'd delegate everything (as usual) and we'd get someone competent.
The pride at watching Leo Varadar, the Irish Taoiseach address the nation on the eve of St Patrick's Day as he put the country into full lockdown (weeks ahead of the U.K.) and cancelled all the fun while inspiring millions. You just knew iCovid was coming like the tide.
Working 24x7 for months on Covid response and keeping the business afloat. Not frontline just bonkers busy.
Realising that as stressed as I was I had it bloody easy over those caring for the dying
Seeing the kids for about an hour a day due to the job while DH did all the home schooling, the household stuff and shopped online for England.
Watching all three of them enjoy the endless days of sunshine through the window on endless conference calls.
Watching DD1 thrive and DD2 become withdrawn and anxious due to home schooling.
Weirdly "seeing" friends more than usual because of Zoom.
Teaching the kids to ride bicycles and the Highway Code safely on empty roads.
Realising that batshit MIL who we'd been shopping for and sanitising groceries had been "popping out" to the local corner shops on a daily basis for weeks due to sheer boredom and a belief she was bullet proof.
Watching my terminally ill mother slowly deteriorate over FaceTime and finally seeing her just in time for her death when she'd lost consciousness.
Attending her funeral at arms length from my family and relatives.

I don't think I'll ever forget it.

Is it possible a grandparent said lightheartedly “ you’re like an evacuee in the war” or similar ? When I was small, possibly about 5, I told my mother that blind people could ride motorbikes on the pavement. Apparently I was convinced this was true. The real story was granny was taking me to the park and as we waited at the kerb to cross the road someone on a motorbike or scooter road very close to us. Granny pulled me back and said crossly something like “ is he blind? He was nearly on the pavement” In my 5 year old mind that turned into blind people ride motorbikes on pavements.