Evacuees adjust to a different world

22nd November 1940: The experience of being separated from family and loved ones becomes more difficult as Christmas looms

Some of the 175 children being monitored by the Ministry of Health during their evacuation from Bristol to the Kingsbridge area of Devon. The photograph was taken on arrival at Brent Station in September 1940.

A policeman helps some young evacuees, and a nun who is escorting them, at a London station.

At the outbreak of war in September 1939, some 1.5 million people, mainly children, were officially evacuated from urban centres to ‘safer areas’ around Britain. As the phoney war progressed, and the predicted air raids never materialised, many returned home. Then, when the Blitz did commence in September 1940, a further wave of evacuations began. This time, some 1.25 million people joined the exodus, and there was now an obvious reason for people to stay where they were sent.

There was an obvious temptation to disregard the government's policy.

So for millions of families, the war brought the pain of separation. Wartime propaganda inevitably presented a positive image of the evacuee process. Many contemporary diaries present a much more difficult experience. Bob Harris¹ was perhaps typical of all too many:

It is November 1940, two months since I arrived in Rossington, South Yorkshire from my Sussex home. I am already homesick. Christmas looms ahead as a confirmation of separation. Just ten years old, I am billeted with a miner’s family, together with my brother John, who is two years older than me, and I look to him for moral support.