Department of English and American Studies the Evacuation of British

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Department of English and American Studies the Evacuation of British Masaryk University Faculty of Arts Department of English and American Studies English Language and Literature Teaching English Language and Literature for Secondary Schools Kateřina Svídová The Evacuation of British Schoolchildren During WWII and its Portrayal in Literature Master’s Diploma Thesis Supervisor: prof. Mgr. Milada Franková, CSc., M.A. 2016 I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography. …………………………………………….. Author’s signature I would like to thank to my supervisor prof. Mgr. Milada Franková, CSc., M.A. for her steadfast support. The thesis would not have been written without her endless patience and kind encouragement. Table of Contents 1. Introduction 1 2. Preparation of Evacuation 3 3. Waves of Evacuation 6 3.1 The First Evacuation 6 3.1.1 Evacuation Day 8 3.1.2 Problematic Issues of the First Evacuation 15 3.1.3 The First Evacuation – Success or Not? 32 3.2 The Second Evacuation 33 3.2.1 Evacuation of the Channel Islands 34 3.2.2 The Differences of the Second Evacuation 36 3.3 The Third Evacuation 43 3.3.1 The Differences of the Third Evacuation 44 3.3.2 Coming Back Home 45 4. Taking Part in the Evacuation 46 4.1 Teachers 46 4.2 Billeting Officers and WVS 47 4.3 Foster Parents 47 4.4 Parents 49 4.5 Evacuated Children 51 5. Life of Evacuees 54 5.1 Types of Accommodation 54 5.2 Food 55 5.3 Clothing 56 5.4 Doing Their Bit 57 5.5 Education 58 5.6 Spare Time 59 5.7 Novelty of the Life in the Countryside 61 6. The Impact of the Evacuation 63 6.1 Social Consequences of the Evacuation 63 6.2 Coming Home 65 6.3 Changed Personalities 68 6.4 Did the Experiment Work? 69 7. Portrayal of the Evacuation of Children in Literature 72 7.1 Brief Introduction of Chosen Authors and Their Books 72 7.2 An Analysis of the Chosen Books 75 7.2.1 The Evacuation Day 75 7.2.2 Problematic Issues of the Evacuation 82 7.2.3 Taking Part in the Evacuation 86 7.2.4 Life of Evacuees 101 7.2.5 Impact of the Evacuation 108 8. Conclusion 110 9. Works Cited 113 10. Summary 115 11. Resumé 116 1. Introduction A lot of people are familiar with the medieval tale about the town of Hamelin. All of a sudden all the children disappeared and the town was stripped of their games, hollering and laughter. Though someone may think that the decision to call the evacuation plan of city children during WWII the Operation Pied Piper gives the whole scheme an eerie atmosphere, the operation had very similar consequences as the actions of the legendary Pied Piper in medieval Hamelin. Out of the blue many British parents of the children from cities and industrial towns experienced the same loss as the parents from the German tale. However, the British children were not taken away for good by a mysterious stranger, their temporary evacuation was proposed by the government in order to move them from danger zones to the safe ones. This thesis aims to describe the unique phenomenon of the evacuation of British children during WWII and to provide an analysis of three books of fiction covering the topic of the evacuation. In order to do so, the thesis consists of two main parts. The first half of the thesis gives factual background which is necessary for the understanding and analysing of the three chosen books. It also provides the reader with numerous testimonies of real evacuees. The second half picks up on the issues from the factual part and explores how they are reflected in the analyzed books. It is important to stress that this thesis focuses exclusively on children who were evacuated on their own and were not accompanied by their mothers as was the case for very young children. As far as the structure of the thesis is concerned, the second chapter, describing the gradual preparation of the evacuation scheme, is followed by a chapter defining and comparing various waves of the evacuation. There were three waves which chronologically copied the shifting level of danger that Britain was exposed to by the 1 Nazi regime. The very first wave of the evacuation is presented in a very detailed manner, exploring all the aspects that were typical of the first evacuation. The other subchapters, commenting on the second and third wave, focus on the differences from the first wave of the evacuation. The fourth chapter elaborates the extra efforts and sacrifices made by evacuation´s main protagonists, i.e. the teachers, billeting officers, foster parents, parents and last but not least, the evacuated children. Since the main focal point of the thesis are children and their experience of the evacuation, chapter number five is devoted solely to this aspect and describes what life of the evacuees looked like, be it food, clothing, education, spare time etc. Chapter number six tries to show the impact of the evacuation. Even though the effects of the evacuation on British society are mentioned and a connection with the Welfare State is identified, the issue is not explored very deeply. On the other hand, the impact of the evacuation on individuals and their families is given a more detailed treatment. The analytical part of the thesis comes with the seventh chapter. It briefly introduces the authors and reveals that all the three authors, i.e. Ken Chadwick, Nina Bawden and Michael Morpurgo had their own experience with the war time evacuation as children. Their books can be therefore considered for not only fiction but partly also memoirs. As stated before, the structure of the analysis roughly copies the most important chapters from the factual part of the thesis. It is especially designed in this way so that it is apparent to the reader how much the actual events are mirrored in the works of fiction. 2 2. Preparation of Evacuation Given the fact that Britain lost 1 400 civilians in air raids during the First World War, it is hardly surprising that the possible threat of another wave of air attacks had to be addressed in the post-Great-War times (Brown, Evacuees 1). One of the outcomes of WWI were huge advancements in technology which besides other things allowed planes to reach farther destinations. Such scientific developments endangered Britain's long- time security given by its distance from the European continent. The very first official body whose task was to deal with the newly arisen problem of air attacks was the Air Raid Precautions (ARP) Committee, formed in 1921. This committee identified London as the main target of possible air strikes and formed two presumptions: “that it would be impossible to relocate most of the activities normally carried out in London, and that the nation could not continue to exist if bombing forced these activities to cease” (Brown, Evacuees 1). Moreover, the committee stressed out the undermining effect of civilian losses on the nation's morale and at the same time emphasized that restrictions or orders concerning individuals´movement cannot be extensive in democratic society (Brown, Evacuees 1). It was therefore proposed that any removal of civilians from the capital city should include only a part of society and that any kind of evacuation should be entirely voluntary and people should be only encouraged to move from their homes. The part of society singled out for evacuation were women, children, the elderly and the sick (Brown, Evacuees 1). The committee proposed that more detailed evacuation schemes would be designed by the Ministries of Health and Transport and the Boards of Education and Trade. The committee also advised that the plans be focused on the poorest residents because it was assumed that wealthier families would make their own evacuation arrangements (Brown, Evacuees 1). However, not all members of the 3 committe had only charitable intentions in mind as far as helping the poor Londoners was concerned. As Brown discloses, some members of the committee “believed that after bombing the poor would flock to the wealthier areas and loot them wholesale” (Brown, Evacuees 2). It was not until 1934 when other cities, apart from London, were also considered in terms of evacuation. The politically turbulent 1930´s proved that the idea of another war conflict was not unrealistic and the prospect of it rushed British government to elaborate on evacuation schemes in more details. The government decided that the Ministry of Health would be responsible for the evacuation and appointed Sir John Anderson as the head of the Committee on Evacuation in May 1938 (Brown, Evacuees 3). The Committee´s first accomplishment was the decision that evacuation should be centered mainly on children. As J.B.S. Haldane from ARP explained, the reason behind that decision was simple: “There is one class of the community which could be evacuated at very short notice, and with very little difficulty. These are the school children, and particularly the elementary school children. They are accustomed to obey their teachers, at least up to a point” (Brown, Evacuees 3). The committee had to tackle two major problems which were not dealt with by any previous scheme on evacuation. The first issue was to determine what to do with the evacuees when they left evacuation areas. It was decided that accommodation and care would be provided by private households in reception areas. In order to ensure that no household tried to avoid billeting an evacuee, the Committee made billeting compulsory.
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