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!

Yes I remember the last few weeks before lockdown as a time of growing wierdness. The last school function we attended (thinking about perhaps not shaking hands but we did accidentally). Then my MIL died suddenly (but not unexpectedly), going one each to their (boarding) schools to tell our teenagers, getting DH on a plane to Australia. One of them came home, went back a couple of days, then came home again. Then their schools closed anyway. We were able to go to our local church on the day of the funeral, with a copy of the service being used, and made our own memorial, DS playing the organ. Lockdown must have started only days later.

DH trying to come back, worrying if he was going to end up stuck in Australia. 3 days of back and forth to the airport Singapore agreed to let a couple of plane-loads of passengers through (not entering the terminal). Suggesting one of us used the spare room for a couple of weeks by way of quarantine just in case.

Then, for me, getting used to having everyone at home all the time.

I think it may have been in May that I took the first opportunity when it seemed legitimate, to visit my mother's rural cottage (she was still living overseas too) and check on it, turn off the winter heating and open the conservatory vents. I took everything I needed with me and planned to stay just one night. Conveniently the neighbours were out when I pulled up so I was able to let them know my plans. I'd barely been there 2 or 3 hours when a couple of police officers came round to check, they'd had a call that someone appeared to using a holiday cottage ... Actually they were lovely when I explained and confirmed my plans were fine even if I needed to stay a couple of nights.

Quite possibly! Like PP said, it's interesting because it is based in fact but at the same time is a total miscomprehension. He genuinely seems to have thought that children, all children, were evacuated in the pandemic. And I had no idea that this was what he thought until today!

He's 7 though. I can see where he's coming from - if I've read correctly, he was sent away for a month to his grandparents during the pandemic?
That wasn't usual for lockdown, (not saying it wasn't the case for some!)
Can see why he'd conflate WW2 evacuation with lockdown when he learnt about it at school.

Oh, what I'd been going to post (then got distracted reading the thread), was that an old friend of mine in New York sent her children away to relatives for several months. I'm not sure how old they were, maybe 9 and 13. Heartbreaking.

See @TreadSoftlyOnMyDreams this is a prime an example of memories being distorted over time, you say 'weeks ahead of the UK' but unless I'm mistaken St. Patrick's Day is 17 March and UK lockdown started on the 23rd.

Sorry @TreadSoftlyOnMyDreams I posted the below too soon and don't want you to think that diminishes the rest of your experience, which sounds bloody awful, I'm sorry xx

Depends on the circumstances. If they were key-workers or something, doing crazy hours and having a lot of exposure to a virus we knew little about, I can absolutely understand why they would do it.

Gosh OP. Are you ok now? That sounds really difficult.

and yeah to a PP - I don’t think many people will forget about the lockdowns! Really insensitive.

I do think a lot of children have put a sort of mind blank on that time period because it was so traumatic. Being so little and being fearful of even playing in a playground and getting close to anyone.

It would be lovely if all children had been spared the trauma by being evacuated together with their mums and dads.

Lots of lessons learnt which probably will be relived in a few years time no doubt.

I have just remembered that I helped DD move to stay with her bf's family and I was terrified of getting stopped on the motorway and told to turn back! So weird to think of it now.

For me it seems like a remarkable moment in time. At least tor the first lockdown. Things were different, they were hard, but we had a good summer, with no school syllabus (at least for us). In a weird way I yearn for that time, because it was easy and simple.

Thank you - yes, I'm fine now! I have to have a lot of check-ups and blood tests but it all looks good so far. I had AML, so although it's very acute, the chance of full remission is good.

It was so fast though. On the last day of school I was collecting the kids and I had a phone call with the GP because I was feeling so tired and run down and he basically said, "it's probably anxiety and fatigue, we're all going through a lot at the moment." And a week or so later I was in hospital having biopsies and blood transfusions and being told that I had to shield from everyone. Crazy turnaround.

Bless him!

Easy and simple not my recollection as a single parent trying to work full time and home school DD on my own whilst not having a mental breakdown but tbh compared to what a lot of people went through I had it very easy

I think there were so many different experiences.

I remember phoning student DD2 and saying she wouldnt be able to come down to us - both of us in tears. Then phoning her to say 'we can come up this weekend to pick you up, pack everything you value'. We also picked up her boyfriend. They locked down with us.

DH, DS, DD2 starting work at in the early hours at our local supermarket - working in home shopping. DD1 separated from her BF as they were protecting family members - both needing to go into work.

I worked from home. My assistant was furloughed so I had to do his job as well as my own so I was starting work as the early starters left the house. My assistant hated every second of furlough. He missed the structure of work, he begged to come back.

We have been fortunate. Both DD's relationships survived the pressures. One is now married the other will be marrying next year.

My son is 9 and asked who homeschooled me when I was little, he assumed everyone was homeschooled at some point. Luckily he doesn’t seem to traumatised by the actual lockdowns, he found it quite nice that there were only a few children at his school. My teen DD had an awful time, she was just starting to get a social life and suddenly trapped, her A-Levels went to shit and she ended up in therapy. My kids lost a grandparent right at the end of the “second wave” after we’d avoided the grandparents for the year because I’m a teacher and was mixing with vulnerable children. My husband and I are both key workers so no furlough or fun in my house. Oh and I also spent 6 weeks FaceTiming my dying parent who was horrified at what he was seeing in hospital. My family will never be the same again. ☹️

I think it’s inaccurate to describe people as tone deaf to say they felt happiness. I realise as I read that I could describe the experience in many different ways, dealing with death of close family members and the grief with no privacy, fear for vulnerable loved ones, aching loneliness of those who lived alone weeping or raging, working ridiculously long hours, supporting ridiculous numbers of people by being “the one they could tell”, difficulty getting medication, food, and the overcrowded house, and never a moment alone..OR.. I could describe the beautiful summer and making a vegetable garden and silly games and weird cooking and NO SCHOOL RUN, and the extraordinary compliment of so people asking if things got really bad would I care for their children. There were some really amazing stories of pubs feeding hungry and lonely people and delivering food and essentials.

It wasn’t all bad. It was a strange pause in the world and I feel very differently about lots of things since.

I remember the day schools in England closed, I was a school governor and was watching the lunchtime news and it was announced that schools in Scotland and Wales were closing. The headteacher called and we were chatting and she was discussing a newsletter she was composing to tell parents about what they were doing next week (she obviously hadn’t heard the news) I told her to hold off as it was possible that school would be closed and they had said in Scotland that it could be until September! It just seemed unreal and then of course Boris made the announcement

I remember the day the schools closed- by that day we had so few in (large secondary). I was teaching year 10 and 4 of us put all our classes together as there were so few of them. We walked them all to the exit when the bell went. Bizarre.
The next day I drove food parcels round to the families of children in receipt of free school meals. Looking back it is so weird to think of!

I was also thinking about the day when children's playgrounds reopened. I took a picture of my 18 month old going down the slide and a friend messaged me to say how out of order I was for going on a playground during covid.

I think everyone's different experiences were just down to pure chance. I wasn't furloughed as my company didn't close down, but we were all on mandatory 66% hours and 66% pay, WFH.

I'd just come out of 2 very difficult years post divorce from an abusive relationship. I'd met (now) DH in the December and he moved in with me on the spur of the moment for lockdown, knowing that he could fairly legally just return to his empty flat if it didn't work.

I dread to think what I'd have done if I had still been single and in the very delicate mental state I was a year or two earlier. Not been able to pay my mortgage and bills without my DP's small contribution for one, and the total isolation from friends, family and even colleagues I don't even want to think too much about.

I got ill with covid symptoms in March 2020. But at that point there was no testing in the community, just hospitals, so I phoned 111 and they sent an ambulance, that was the standard response for anyone suspected of having covid. A masked paramedic came to my house and checked my vitals, and said he was confident I did have covid. It was quite scary, not because I became seriously ill, although I didn’t feel brilliant that’s for sure. But I was a bit of a pioneer within my friends and family as I was the first to get it, and I spent my recuperation time fielding endless calls and messages checking up on me, asking what it was like, I got get well soon cards, everyone was fascinated and wanted to know the ins and outs. Seems crazy now when if someone says they have/just had covid, people are like oh right 🤷‍♀️🤣.

The good thing for me was that after that I wasn’t scared of covid, I felt shitty for a couple of weeks then fine. Glad I got it early on as so many people were living in fear for a long time about getting it.

dp and I were saying just before how we had nice a nice meal at a restaurant we drove past earlier this evening, we were trying to remember when it was and I remember went there because it was in the next county. We live in County A and it was in ‘red’ constantly, some of the highest numbers in the country. 4 miles away is the border to ‘County B’ which is more rural and never was quite as bad. all the restaurants shut in our area, of course, pubs non essential shops etc, but not in County B… so everyone used to just go 4 miles down the road to have a meal out, drinks, shop… it’s quite sad because a lot of places near us suffered and closed down and the neighbouring county has done well because people found new places to try. Even getting taxis to pubs and being dropped off back in the ‘red’ area, it never seemed to matter and no one ever questioned it! What was the frigging point honestly !!?

I found a text from last year 3/1/2022 saying I had covid and remember the feeling of anxiety when you used to open those texts up!

the place where the test site was in our town is completely back to normal now like it was never there.

Gosh that must have been. Hard ,my youngest is disabled but thankfully healthy he goes to a special school for children with severe and profound learning disabilities,some of the kids have profound and multiple disabilities and are on oxygen and tube Fed etc,I always think it must be incredibly hard for their parents ti.feel comfortable letting their children go.back to schoo l.

@Teafor1please I was working doing after school music classes in 3 different primary schools, the week before lockdown happened one of my year 6 boys came back from visiting family in China, and another boy said ‘hope you’ve not got that Chinese virus!’ And I was like ‘don’t be so silly! What a silly thing to say, say sorry!’ Like it was so impossible a kid could possibly have it, and have brought it back. It was most likely Covid was already going round by then, in a big way. The day before schools closed a little girl asked me ‘will school be closing?’ and I said ‘probably just for a week or so, don’t worry’ 🥲
I never went back to that job we never were allowed in until 2021 spring term as non essential and I had a new job by then. The kids I taught will be 12/13/14 now. Crazy.

Dh arrived home from China just before they stopped people coming back without quarantining. He'd been on trains in hotels etc across China.

We were relatively lucky. My mental health was horrific and I couldn't see my mum at all (disabled and on her own in a different country) but the kids were 12&9 and coped ok. Thankfully no exam years etc. Ds (12) was quite happy talking to his mates on the PlayStation. Dd struggled more with not seeing friends but because we are in Scotland the rules for the under 12s were more relaxed here and she could see friends outside etc after a while. I wasn't working and dh was able to wfh so we weren't losing money and were ok as I was able to help with homeschooling.

I was very very very anxious and mentally not ok and looking back I feel ridiculous because I was safe really much more safe than a lot of others .