What is an Evacuee?

An evacuee is someone who has had to leave their home for their own safety. During the Second World War there were 3 major evacuations the first one was on Friday 1st September 1939, this was named ‘Operation Pied Piper’. It is said around 827,000 school children were evacuated alongside Teachers, Mothers with children under five, Pregnant women and some people with disabilities. A further two million or so more wealthy individuals evacuated 'privately', some settling in hotels for the duration and several thousands travelling to Canada, the United States, South Africa, Australia and the Caribbean

 

Where children/families were evacuated to?

Due to the air raids on Britain’s major cities and coastal areas children were evacuated out of the big towns such as London, Bristol, Liverpool and Birmingham to the country which had far less risk of air raids these places consisted of Wales, Devon, Dorset and Cornwall. Other children also went to East Anglia and Scotland. It is said around 10,000 children were removed from England and sent to parts of the USA, Canada and Australia.

 

Before war broke out due to the great threat on the country as a whole children in all major cities were being evacuated. The government created a scheme where evacuee children were sent with their schools to derelict country towns around England to host families, others were sent by themselves to relatives already living in these locations.  Furthermore the government created National camps in the countryside to board larger groups of children.  Being an evacuee was a really traumatic experience for some children were they going to see their families again? Where were they going? What were their host families going to be like? but knowbody knew the answers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here are two videos from the movie Narnia - The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe. These videos are great representations of what it was like in London during an air raid. Also the it shows you the 4 siblings Peter, Edmond, Susan and Lucy onboard the train fleeing London to an Evacuee host family.