Home From Home
Children, mothers with infants and the infirm were evacuated from the cities and towns of Britain, during the Second World War. The government’s voluntary evacuation scheme, which began in September 1939, resulted in the relocation of 1.5million evacuees to rural areas during the first three days of the programme alone. Additional rounds of evacuation occurred during the summer and winter of 1940.
The experience for the evacuees and the homes receiving them was widely varied.
While some found their situation incredibly difficult, others thrived in their temporary new lives.
These youngsters staying at the Lanhydrock estate in Cornwall enjoyed sports, played dressing-up and performed in pantomines, took rides on a pony called Jingle and enjoyed excursions in the family Rolls or Austin.
All activities were reported back to their parents, the children being regularly encouraged to make contact by letter or phone. They sometimes even sent their mothers flowers from the gardens. No doubt these recollections would have been recounted by the surviving evacuees who enjoyed a reunion at the National Trust property in 2000. nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/cornwall/lanhydrock
When it was time to return home, some evacuees embraced the end of this long period of separation from their families and the emotional turmoil of those years, while others faced a significant upheaval to return to a life they could sometimes barely remember.
Children who were evacuated during the war had become accustomed to spending their time in large groups of youngsters rather than in small family units.