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Evacuation Of Children World War 2

enjoyed reading that viv and i guess a typical story of many evacuees...could just be coinsidence but i knew a douglas family from nursery road.. my brother used to hang about with one of the children..i wonder if the writer john douglas was his dad


lyn
 
How wonderful that many children were permanently returned home in time for Christmas. Althoigh I expect a period of adjustment would be needed by parents and their evacuated children. It also shows there was a well thought through plan for the handover of children arriving back in Birmingham.

And interesting that some teachers found new jobs in places they were evacuated to. Perhaps inevitable, and offering an opportunity for some young teachers to move away and settle elsewhere, which otherwise might not have been possible.

Screenshot_20231212_155240_Chrome.jpgScreenshot_20231212_155245_Chrome.jpg
 
Thanks for that, Pedrocut,

Whatever our problems now, we can have no comprehension whatsoever of the feelings every parent must have had who were directly caught up in all this or were just being reminded about what was going on by reading the paper. It must have seemed that the world had been turned topsy-turvy. Nothing dreadful had happened yet but everyone knew that it was going to. And so, HOW do you protect your children when the world has gone mad?

I always have the utmost admiration for that generation who, in the main, just got on with it, did everything they possibly could to keep their children safe and cared for, whatever their own anguish, and despite everything, gave those of us who were there as happy a childhood as they possibly could.

Chris
 
It must have been an agonising decision for parents to send their children away.

Was there a plan for children born in the war years? My uncle was born in 1941 and he wasn't, though my dad was 5 years older and he wasn't either.
 
MWS said:
It must have been an agonising decision for parents to send their children away.

Was there a plan for children born in the war years? My uncle was born in 1941 and he wasn't, though my dad was 5 years older and he wasn't either.
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i agree mark how hard it must have been for parents to decide..a parents natural instinct is to keep your children safe and by your side so choosing to send them away to strange people in a strange place must have been an awful decision to have to make...my dad and his siblings were all evacuated to wales..his mom and her 2 year old was evacuated to stratford and as dads mom was also pregnant she gave birth in stratford...

on the other side my moms mom who was widowed chose not to have her 3 girls evacuated mom was the youngest age 11 and her sisters 13 and 15..they lived in paddington st and that area was heavily bombed so i think myself lucky that our mom survived the war...

lyn
 
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I recall my Mother telling me that she, along with my elder brother, was evacuated to Devon during the war. I will ask my brother for details.



Steve.

I have just spoken to my brother.

He was born in January, 1940, so he is guessing that he was evacuated with Mom, in 40/41.
They went to stay at a farm by Halberton, just to the east of Tiverton, in Devon. They were only there a few months, because the farmer started making advances to my mother, so she headed back to Birmingham.

My brother and his wife took my mom and dad on holiday to Devon, many decades ago, and found the farm, which was visible from the village pub, where they were having lunch. It was pointed out to them by the Landlord who knew the family that farmed it.




Steve.
 
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My nan agreed to evacuate two of her children, but after they were evacuated she went, herself, and brought them back to Birmingham. I don't know her reason apart from assuming she preferred them to be with her. It must have been a good reason as the risks at home were enormous given they lived not far from Kynochs etc.
 
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