In the lead up to World War Two, governments throughout Europe had been terrified of bombing. The destruction of innocent civilians at Guernica in Spain during the Spanish Civil War had been the proof that governments needed that bombing was the new horror of warfare. With this in mind, the British government introduced evacuation. Young children were sent with their 'minders' - either mothers or teachers - to what were considered safe areas that would be free from Nazi bombing. In the first few weeks of the start of the war (September 3rd 19139), nearly two million children were evacuated. The government, which controlled all aspects of the media, wanted to give the public the impression that evacuation was popular among those affected and put out propaganda pictures and film to this effect. These smiling children are being evacuated in June 1940 during the Battle of Britain from a coastal town in the South-East. Mother and the baby of the family have to stay behind while sister joins her schoolmates on a train bound for Yorkshire. A soldier comforts a child, perhaps his son, as these youngsters are evacuated from London. However, many mothers were very unsure as to the usefulness of evacuation. Many children were evacuated but not with huge enthusiasm and when it became apparent that war was not going to lead to cities being bombed (this was pre-the Blitz of London during the "Phoney War"), many children returned to the cities from which they had only recently left. The official government story was that all young children had been evacuated and that the whole process had been efficiently organised and executed with precision. However, this was not the whole story. Evacuated children found that their hosts were not always welcoming and that their two lifestyles clashed. Host mothers complained of inner city children urinating wherever they felt like it in a house; locals in rural areas complained of an increase of petty crime - theft from shops and the like. Much of this was never proved though the difference in lifestyles for inner city children must have come as a shock. One of the most important issues to come out of evacuation was the chronic health observed by host families in the countryside. Many evacuated children were much lighter and shorter than children of the same age in rural areas. Body infections were common. All these signs were symptomatic of lack of nutrition, decent housing etc and gave an incentive for the government to do something that was to lead to the Welfare State after the war ended.
In the first phase roughly half of London's schoolchildren were evacuated. The day of departure must of been very painful for both parents and children. In the early morning the children were lined up in the playground by their teachers. Each child carried a gas mask and a bag containing essential items. Some children were said to have departed with buckets and spades because their parents had not the heart to tell them what was really happening. Another story was that a child asked why the mothers at the school gate were crying, to which a quick-witted teacher replied, "because they cannot go on their holidays too" A poignant photograph on the emotional effects of evacuation, captioned: The pathetic scene at Waterloo Station this morning (1st September 1939) showing mothers shouting goodbye to their kiddies from behind the gates of the platform. No mothers were allowed on the platform as the kiddies embarked on the trains. The children, walking in pairs, were led to the station by a person (usually the school caretaker) carrying a placard giving the reference number of the group. The majority of children departed by train and in four days 72 London Transport Stations despatched some 1.3 million children in 4,000 special trains.
