WW2 Evacuation

Evacuation Evacuees at Wing Village hall awaiting billets, 1940 (ph Wing 102) The fear of air attack by German bombers led the British Government to plan the wholesale evacuation of women and children from the large cities months before war was declared. Nothing like this had ever been attempted before and it was a huge undertaking. Lying next to London with excellent rail and road communications yet with little industry Buckinghamshire was an ideal place to receive evacuees. To some extent evacuation was an ongoing process throughout the war but there are three distinct phases which can be identified. 1. September 1939 The threat of bombs on important cities led the government to start an evacuation programme whereby children and sometimes their mothers were sent out of the cities to stay in rural areas of the country where bombing was less likely to occur. It was a huge operation and it began before the outbreak of war. Alarmed by the declaration of war in September 1939 many people in London sent their children to any friends or relatives in the country, or rented houses outside the metropolis. These were known as unofficial evacuees. The government organised for approximately 31,000 children, mothers and teachers to be received in Buckinghamshire alone. Those being evacuated left London on trains and coaches. In the towns where they were heading church halls and schools were adapted as reception centres and billeting officers were appointed by the local councils to allocate evacuees to the homes of local people. Advert from the newspaper Wendover and Aylesbury News appealing for homes for evacuees (March 21st 1940) Page from a WVS 1945 calendar (D/X 814/8/2) Those allocated to Aylesbury and area were met at the railway station and taken to the town hall where they were split up and sent on coaches to reception centres at the surrounding villages. Billeting officers had already collected names and addresses of people able to accommodate evacuees and the process of allocation seems to have gone fairly smoothly. Evacuated school children were sent with their fellow pupils and teachers. Aylesbury received children from schools at Ealing, Stepney, Aldgate and Brixton. All were therefore from the inner city, some from very poor backgrounds, and the contrast between that and rural Buckinghamshire was huge. In the event a figure of roughly 3500 were met at the Aylesbury Railway Station off the High Street or arrived by coach over the three days 1-3 September. Reporting on the event afterwards the Town Clerk remarked that all staying in Aylesbury were housed on the day they arrived. This was achieved despite the arrival of unofficial evacuees who were prepared to pay high prices for accommodation thus making it difficult to find. The Aylesbury operation ran efficiently and well and it was only as things settled down that the problems began to arise. Housing the large number of people suddenly coming into the county created problems: extra bedding was required and sometimes clothes, particularly for the poorer children; more nurseries for infants and maternity care for pregnant mothers; some children were sick or covered in headlice and complaints regarding the condition and behaviour of the evacuees were numerous Many of the the children from inner city London were not in a very healthy state. Conditions like headlice became a real problem. Many of these problems had to be sorted out by the Womens Voluntary Service who who were instrumental in looking after the daily needs of evacuees. This letter from Lady Courtown reveals something of the problem. (ref MB 3/10/5/124) Dear Mr. Crookes, Thank you for your letter. I am getting agitated about children’s heads. I think it is on the increase. I have talked to Dr. Dunham about it and he is doing all he can at the Sick Bay, but of course, there are more cases than he can cope with there. The householders are really doing their best, but if it is really bad, it is a very difficult thing for them to cope with themselves. I know Dr. Sims Roberts’s idea is that nothing would really cure it but shaving all their heads, which of course, is impossible! Miss Mead at the Gate House, is quite ready to set aside one bathroom for this object tempo- rarily, if a nurse could be found who could deal with the matter thoroughly. Could you possibly find one to do this? Would it be possible for one of the Town Hall nurses to do it? If we did this regularly for two or three weeks, we could get all the heads right. Now as it is, they are spreading from day to day. I have had many letters, and interviews with mothers, on the subject. Yours sincerely, Cicely Courtown This letter illustrates some of the problems that well-meaning householders sometimes encountered in taking children from a very different background. (MB3/10/5/31) To the Town Clerk Dear Sir, I am writing to you on the advice of the Billetting Officers about a little boy billeted on me named Donald Pearce aged 5½ whom I should like to have moved, as for one thing he is too big a responsibility for me, as he is not a normal child and I seem to have no control over him, he will not do as he is told, and he has very dirty habits, and as I have three children of my own, aged 3, 6, and 10 it is very worrying for me, and my little girl of three is beginning to copy him, and I have brought my children up to be clean in their habits and to know their manners. I am not trying to shirk my duty, as I am quite will- ing to take a decent child, preferably a little girl between his age and about 8 in his place. Yours sincerely, There were sometimes problems with the billet, too, as the following letter from a concerned parent in London shows (MB3/10/5/124) Brixton London S.W.9 Mon. 30th Dear Sir or Madam As regards to my two daughters, evacuees billeted with Mrs.Sewell . I visited them and found they are sleeping on mats on the floor, and I don’t feel inclined to pay any money out for them until they are properly housed and provided with a bedroom utensil. I’m aware one must put up with things one wouldn’t in ordinary times, but surely in Aylesbury there are some spare beds or mattresses, or at least billet the children with people who are prepared for them and have accommodation for them. I am writing you as my children are very young and need a cer- tain amount of care and attention. Yours truly, 2.Summer 1940 As the months passed no bombs fell and the Londoners began to drift home. After France had fallen to the Nazis in the summer of 1940, preparations for a second evacuation began. The reception and billeting of evacuees resumed and greater hospital facilities were made in the expectation of air-raid victims. This time the bombs did fall and the London Blitz began. Official evacuation continued but it was the flood of refugees simply fleeing London to escape the bombs which threatened to overwhelm local resources. People poured on to trains and coaches desperate to get away. Emergency rest centres were set up in local halls to receive the large number of people who literally just fled out of London. Some were injured, many were traumatised by their experiences of the Blitz. It is estimated that the population of Buckinghamshire had risen by 35% by March 1941. Nor was it just children and mothers who were getting out of London and other high risk areas: businesses were also relocating into the quieter rural areas. A comment in the parish magazine of Farnham Royal, a small village not far from Slough, makes clear the effect of these upheavals on a small community: The population of the parish must have increased enormously during the past two months. Refugees have been pouring in from the East Coast, South Coast Channel Islands and London. Troops are billeted here, London firms have their offices here, children are evacuated here, & finally a great company of aunts, un- cles, and cousins have joined up with their relations here. (November 1940) (From D113) This map shows the increase in the population of Buckinghamshire owing to evacuation in camparison with the rest of the country. (From MB3/10/5/124) The sheer volume of people was an administrative nightmare. In this letter an angry and worried parent tries to find out what has become of her evacuated children. (MB3/10/5/124) In March 1940 Queen Elizabeth (mother of the present Queen) sent a letter to all householders who had taken in evacuees for more than two weeks. The town clerk had to supply lists of names and addresses. Those whose billets had proved unsatisfactory were not included! In Aylesbury alone around fourteen hundred households were nominated. (MB3/10/5/123) 3. June 1944 The use of Flying bombs like the Doodlebug towards the end of the war led to a final wave of evacuation. The damage these bombs could do, without warning of their approach, was terrifying and people fled out of London, particularly to places at the end of a railway line like Amersham and Chesham. Once again the rest centres Colleen Saunders (nee Smith) was evacuated with her sister to Padbury in 1939. Hers was a very happy experience.

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