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!

We were talking about lockdown at work last week. None of us have social lives so we knew we were the lucky ones who found it easy. I think people with families, social lives and holidays really got knocked by it. I'm a lone parent so routine, running and isolation was / is normal for me.

People forget the world kind of opened back up by the summer. We went abroad twice in Summer 2020, managed to miss the traffic light system so didn’t have any red zone isolations to do. We were also lucky to have a support bubble so still saw my parents regularly and my children had each other to play with. We zoomed game nights and quizzes with friends and siblings 2/3 times a week and sat in the garden at the same time as neighbours sat in theirs listening to music, having a drink and a chat.
My niece, who is an only child, and who wasn’t in a support bubble with anyone is the child I think has suffered the most of the ones I know. She was just under school age so had no home learning and 2 parents wfh so largely left to her own devices. She is painfully shy, anxious and does not mix with others. She’s very protective of her things and hardly speaks (she can speak) even to her parents.
My DC seem to, thankfully, be unaffected.

Indeed 4th. It was only 4 months. And mostly nice weather.

The Jan / Feb lockdown felt easier as vaccines were kicking in and we knew the dril by then.

What a scary time for you OP glad you are ok now.

Our family losses from covid were not elderly both me and DH still very effected by it, we have many friends/family that we don’t hear from anymore any messages are replied with one word, no engagement or interaction.

That wasn’t the case is wales.

I remember looking out of my bedroom window and seeing one of our neighbours being carried out of the house in a body bag by undertakers wearing white hazmat suits, running downstairs and not being quite quick enough to shut the living room blinds before my then 6 year old and 2 year old saw.

I remember the kids deciding one day in June that it was Halloween, they both dressed up in last years costumes, decorated the house with cut out paper pumpkins, made us set up a Halloween treasure hunt and then we all watched a spooky film.

I remember being in school from 7am until 6pm, dealing with the tsunami of safeguarding and mental health concerns, making phonecalls to the parents of vulnerable kids (many of whom cried down the phone to me for up to 30 minutes at a time), attending virtual CP meetings, helping out with the 200+ keyworker/vulnerable children who were in, trying to interpret the vague and confusing guidance that kept coming through from the DofE, delivering food parcels to FSM kids then coming home and reading about how "lazy school staff" are "all sat in their gardens drinking gin". To be fair I also remember giving my toddler a bucket of water and a paintbrush and instructing him to "paint" the garden patio and shed so I could sit in the garden and drink gin on the weekends, which was pretty lazy of me.

Just asked DD what she remembers from lockdown and she said her and the little girls who lives in the house opposite writing messages to each other in chalk on the pavement (which I have no memory of but DH does) and that my banana bread wasn't very good.

Or indeed for several million of us in England.

I'm so sorry. People not being allowed to hug, or even sit next to, their loved ones at funerals seems utterly incomprehensible now. Especially now we know what those who made those rules were getting up to at the time.

I'd say they (DC) were taken away rather than sent! Grandad came and picked them up. I remember I was worried they might have been stopped on the road...

"seems so long ago but in actual fact a year ago DH was 40 and we were still in lockdown messures as we went out and had to be in a maximum number for dinner and couldn’t stand up to order a drink."

Where are you? The UK wasn't like that at all in 2022 was it?

OP your kid was evacuated really wasn't he? He's 4 years old, there's a pandemic and therefore he needs to go and stay with grandparents not in the country.

Sorry, just seen it was this country. I can see why he thinks he was evacuated though. What strange times

ny friend and her colleagues literally did have to ‘evacuate’ their kids. They are ICU nurses in Spain. The rules were way stricter, childcare wasn’t a reason to go into peoples houses and nobody could be in the street. They had to send their kids to GP/ aunts and uncles etc for 4 months and that was it. Barbaric times.

I think I would've refused to work in that situation.

I remember the weird feeling when lockdown was announced - I was at my parents for the last time in a few months, though I didn’t know it - and my historian brain was making lots of WW2 parallels of everyone gathering around and listening to the announcements and the sudden changes that were going to take place. I can see why a small child, who went away around that time, would draw parallels while learning about it.

I've just remembered the absolute absurdity of the tier system that meant for 3 weeks I couldn't go to the supermarket 10 minutes away and the retail park to Christmas shop, because it was a no go tier, but was allowed to go 30 minutes to a supermarket all because I live on the edge of a district that was a low tier.

Our local pub was also allowed to open, but one 5 minutes down the road had to stay closed.

The main thing I remember about lockdown is the crushing loneliness. DS1 was only a few months old and had reflux so didn't sleep, I was exhausted but had just started getting out with him to a little group down the road. Then COVID hit and I had to shield, we couldn't get his formula as everywhere was out of stock so I was terrified he would starve (he couldn't breast feed which I was really sad about), and DH had to go to work so slept in the spare room. I remember thinking that if I died no-one would even know. It seems like a bad dream now.

Ds(18) remembers studying for exams, keeping in contact with friends on playstation (even getting a bit bored of playstation!), walking the dog a lot, playing board games at home more, talking to his gran from the garden, going for walks outdoors with friends. He remembers it being different did a while but not negatively. Thinks the restrictions had a positive impact on his revision (as there were less distractions).

There was obviously lots of adult issues going on around him with self employed dh not working and we lost an awful lot of money etc but he was a typical teen and oblivous to it all.

The mental health of new mothers was thrown under the bus in lockdown, especially the first one before bubbles etc.

www.gov.scot/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-update-first-ministers-statement-25-january-2022/

Sturgeon's statement confirming nightclubs could reopen. 25th January 2022, almost exactly a year ago.

@4thonthe4th People forget the world kind of opened back up by the summer. We went abroad twice in Summer 2020

I'm not forgetting anything. Good for you, but we didn't get abroad until summer 2022. Summer 2020 we couldn't book anything as frontline HCPs as the risk of having to isolate on return was too high. Our work were encouraging us to stay at home. I'm not sure they could have forced us, but we weren't in the headspace to consider it. Summer 2021 our holiday got cancelled. We managed to go away in Scotland in August 2020 but had to book restaurants ahead, had restricted times and distancing was still 100% in action.

@ApiratesaysYarrr RTFT please, it's pretty insensitive to ask was it already planned when OP had already confirmed she had flipping leukaemia

I honestly barely noticed lockdown - I WFH anyway. My DH was on furlough and spent 6 months watching Netflix 🙄 my kids are grown up so I didn't have homeschooling to think about. I'm fortunate that nobody I know caught covid during the lockdowns - my DDs have had it mildly over the last year, but both me and DH never got it, neither did my parents.

The main thing I remember about that time is the quietness. I live near a dual-carriageway and there is a constant hum of traffic that you don't notice day to day, but when it stopped it was weird - like your ears popping on a plane. I still seen my DDs throughout as I looked after the GC whilst they worked. The kids were too young for school at the time anyway so nothing changed for them, they were used to staying with me.

It's mad how peoples experiences are so vastly different. I'm fortunate it happened at the life-stage I'm at now; had it occurred 20 years ago when my kids were small and I was a care worker living in a small terrace with barely any outside space no doubt id still feel traumatised by it all.

It's okay, I didn't mention it in the OP! Wasn't trying to dripfeed, but it wasn't really the main point. We obviously wouldn't have "evacuated" the kids if it hadn't been for the lockdown. But it would have been impossible, with no support, no one to ask for help, nowhere to go, not even having school each day. Once I was over the worst part of chemo, they came back. It was a very weird time! I hadn't been without kids sound since I was 24, when DD1 was born, and it was strange not being followed around by wails of "mummmmmmyyyyyy".

I mean, I didn’t direct my post to you…. I replied to the poster who said they were discussing that people who usually holiday regularly and saw family suffered the most. I was stating that wasn’t the case for many.

I worked through lockdown ( retail) and it was bloody scary at the start- no screens, no gloves, no restrictions on numbers in the shop, panic buying, customers being complete arseholes sometimes. I'd take my uniform off at work so I didn't take germs home; my son in law would strip off in his garage and run upstairs in his pants to shower before he greeted my daughter and the children(he's a postman).
I remember going to work the first day of lockdown and it was surreal, no traffic, no one about, people jumping into the road so as not to get close.
The worse thing was my grandchildren and not seeing them. I had my grandson twice a week since he was a baby, and when he started school I picked him up twice a week, that stopped. My granddaughter was 4 months old at lockdown and I never got that time with her that I had with him, as my daughter was worried I'd be a risk to them, especially the baby, due to me being with the public at work. I had to make do with brief doorstep visits when I dropped off shopping. When we were allowed garden visits, my grandson was so pleased to see me but had to be stopped from cuddling me, that was horrible.

My daughter was returning to work in September and the plan was for me to look after the baby but she didn't really know me, poor little bugger. The day I went to her house and she picked the baby up, plonked her in my lap and said "well you'll be looking after her all day in 3 weeks so might as well start now" is burnt in my memory. Cuddling her, smelling that baby smell, holding her chubby little legs- amazing. When my grandson came downstairs and was told he could cuddle me it was fab. He's not a cuddly child but he was that day! I thought I'd snap him in half, I was holding him that tight. With him, we were resuming our relationship but I had to start from scratch with his sister, without the benefit of the months that had been lost due to the pandemic. She's 3 now and we have a lovely time and she'll never remember the pandemic. I must ask my dgs his memories of it- he was 6 1/2 when it started.

I was pregnant with my DD when the first lockdown happened (she was born June 2020) and then got furloughed at the beginning of 2021 when pregnant with DS as I wasn't allowed to work past 28 weeks due to the government guidelines! Seems unreal looking back now!