Free Sample Essays > European History
Was evacuation a good idea
Evacuation was the governments plan to save the children from the main cities and industrial areas from the German bombers. By doing this, the government hoped to keep city life running as normal as possible. The children evacuated were of school age. A parent accompanied any children younger than this.
In theory, evacuation was a great idea; although many historians believe that it was not carried out very well. Many of the evacuees and hosts were mismatched, as the government left the children’s arrival and care to local authorities, who had no more idea of city life that the hosts.
Most of the evacuees came from a poverty stricken background in the city, where the state of living was terrible. A huge gap had grown between upper and lower classes and many opinions suggest that evacuation helped close this. One reception worker commented ‘the children were filthy…we had never seen so many children lacking any knowledge of clean and hygiene habits.’
Many of the children saw this as an adventure. Upper class children often attended boarding schools and were used to being away from home. Also, some of the richer children may have been on holiday to the countryside and therefore knew what to expect. "We marched to Waterloo Station behind our head teacher carrying a banner with our school's name on it," says James Roffey, founder of the Evacuees Reunion Association. "We all thought it was a holiday, but the only thing we couldn't work out was why the women and girls were crying."
Some lower class children also saw this as an adventure although there reasons were very different. They saw this as a new start and hoped their life would be better in the countryside. One boy living on the streets of London said ‘I hope I get a rich family who has lots of food’.
The organization of homing the evacuees in the country was described by one historian as ‘a typically British Wartime shamble’. Hundreds of children arrived in the wrong area with insufficient rations. And, more importantly, there were not enough homes in which to put them.
Twelve months earlier, the Government had surveyed available housing, but what they had not taken into account was the extent to which middle-class families would be making their own private arrangements. Consequently, those households who had previously offered to take in evacuees were now full.
As a result of the mismatches, selection was made according to basic principles. Billeting officers simply lined the children up against a wall or on a stage in the village hall, and invited potential hosts to take their pick. Evacuees left behind were forced into the homes of unwanting families.
Some evacuees were beaten, mistreated and abused by families who didn't want them and didn't care about them. John Abbot’s host family enjoyed good food whilst John was given a diet of nothing more than mashed potatoes. He was horsewhipped for speaking out and, with a bruised and bleeding body, was eventually taken in by the [next page]