Mass evacuation of boys and girls gets underway in 1939

One of the biggest movements of people caused by the Second World War of 1939-45 was the mass evacuation of children from sensitive areas likely to be the target of enemy bombing attacks.

The policy was adopted in the light of the terrible devastation of the civilian populations of Barcelona and Guernica during the Spanish Civil War and the government wanted to avoid demoralising servicemen with the news that their families had been killed in a similar fashion while they were away fighting. Children in the exposed industrial urban areas of the larger towns and cities were regarded as being at risk because they lived in zones that included munitions factories, railway and industrial installations, whose destruction would reduce the nation’s war capability. Air raids on them would therefore put people living in the vicinity at risk.

The war did not start until 3rd September 1939 but as early as January and February that year, government appointed billeting officers started knocking on the doors of houses, cottages and farms in the safe rural areas, preparing a list of suitable accommodation for the children should war break out. In May, every home in the threatened areas received a pamphlet providing details of the evacuation scheme and then when war became imminent, on the 1st September 1939, there was a huge exodus of children from London, Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool and other industrial centres.

Over the next three days, 1,473,000 persons were moved from the crowded cities of Britain, the majority of them children but there were also mothers, teachers and escorts, and the entire operation was completed without a single accident or casualty. They went by road, rail and sea, with gas masks, identity labels tied to their clothing and baggage and a supply of food for the journey. It was a step into the unknown for all of them and many were frightened at being away from their families for the first time.

The majority went to safe homes elsewhere in the country while others were sent abroad, to America, Canada, South Africa or other parts of the empire and between then and the end of the war in 1945, the total had reached an estimated three and a half million, although this figure has since been disputed and it may have been much lower. Not all remained. Some children adapted happily to country life, living with strangers, but almost all missed their home surroundings and despite the dangers, many thousands returned home while the sinking of an evacuee ship brought a tragic end to overseas evacuation.

The original movement was a major undertaking but an efficient one, despite the lack of modern day communications and computers, using the old fashioned, operator controlled telephones and the postal service, and when it was over, officials reported that “the children behaved simply marvellously”. It was an exercise that was to be repeated many times over in different places and at different times before the war ended, but on a much smaller scale.

Among those cities that were evacuated was Hull, the east coast fishing port where British shipping was a regular target for enemy planes, and the children were sent to safety throughout the early years of the war as it came under enemy attack. They were found temporary homes inland in the Yorkshire countryside, at Soham in Cambridgeshire and at Bourne where the arrangements for their stay was in the hands of the Women's Voluntary Service [the WVS] which established a network of 200 volunteers looking after the town and 28 of the surrounding villages which eventually provided homes for 900 of the evacuees, mainly from the Estcourt Street Board Schools for infants and juniors in Hull and the Craven Street School for juniors.

The lady in charge was Mrs Kate Cooke, the WVS chairman for the area, who was subsequently awarded the MBE for her community service. She checked on the available homes with her band of helpers, among them her teenage daughter Joy, now living in Canada. “The children arrived with labels around their necks, many quite distraught and lonely of course”, she recalled. “They were magically taken into homes around Bourne quickly although I never understood why they came to us as we were on an obvious target ourselves if the Germans invaded. Many were unhappy at being away from their parents and developed bed wetting problems that distressed the people taking them in. I helped a little, but being only 14 was not that valuable other than talking and giving reassurance to some of the younger children and taking them out for little walks, but in that situation, every little helped.”

Among the first to arrive in Bourne from Hull on 1st September 1939 was Robert Mayo, aged 4, and he was sent to live with Kath and George Rodgers at their cottage in Spalding Road. The following month was his fifth birthday and he was enrolled as a pupil at the Bourne County Primary School [now the Abbey Primary School]. He stayed until 1946 and had several other billetings in the town for short periods, with Harry and Florence Barnatt in Stanley Street and at a children’s hostel which was opened in West Street. But he looks back on the time spent with Mr and Mrs Rodgers as the happiest in his life and in later years returned regularly to see them and reminisce about the old days. Although both are now dead, Robert, aged 70 and retired, still makes an annual pilgrimage to Bourne with his wife Colleen to visit the places he once knew and despite the deprivations and restrictions of the war years where he was at his happiest.

On his last trip in August 2005, he recalled those times that had become a landmark in the formative years of childhood:

I remember my stay in Bourne as a period of beautiful summers and cold winters, kind-hearted people, lovely food always on the table and everything was grown in the garden. It was a very happy time and I loved every minute of it and that is why I keep coming back. I had no idea why I had been sent to Bourne because I did not understand the meaning of the word evacuation and I didn’t know what the war was about until I got older, but I soon came to realise that it meant a better life for me than what I had been used to. At first, I did nothing but cry and wet the bed, which is natural when kids are anxious and that must have been difficult for these looking after because the lavatories were so primitive, usually outside and made of wood and sometimes even a hole at the bottom of the garden.

Schooling was alright. I was not a great scholar and not that well educated but I did learn that two and two made four and I can look after my cash perfectly well and practically, I can turn my hand to anything.

But I loved being with Mr and Mrs Rodgers. My memories are of being brought up to be well-mannered by them and after a while, I began to regard them as my Mam and Dad and they took to me as their son and I shall never forget as long as I live the kindness, the love and tenderness they gave me. They were wonderful people and I was always happy to be with them and when the time eventually came for me to leave, I did not want to go and nor did Mrs Rodgers but the war was over and there was no other choice and I had to go back to my own family. Living here was the happiest and the loveliest time I have ever had in my life.

There were however some experiences that Robert would like to forget. For three months, while Mrs Rodgers was recovering from a difficult birth, he was sent to live with one of the town’s prominent businessmen who lived in North Road, then home to Bourne’s more affluent citizens. “I try to blot those weeks out of my mind”, he said. “Life was quite different for me in his house. Everything was so strict and there was no consideration for children. My day ended with bread and milk at half past three in the afternoon and I had to be in bed by four even though all the other kids were still out playing and enjoying themselves. He had this regime and kept to it no matter how unhappy I was about it. That is something I will never forget from a man who should have known better.”
 

There were other cases of cruelty and I have evidence of one boy being similarly treated, also by one of the town's respected businessmen who lived with his wife in West Road. He used to beat the evacuee who had been allocated to his house with a golf club, frequently locked him in the garage or in a cupboard and on occasions made him drink his own urine. Eventually, the boy ran away and started walking back to Hull but was picked up by the police but when he told his story they refused to send him back to the same house and he was billeted elsewhere. But these cases were rare and most of the boys and girls who came to Bourne appeared to have enjoyed their stay.

David Collins, aged 5 (born 19th June 1935), was a pupil at the school in Estcourt Street, and he remembers the air raids near his home at 68 Rosemead Street, Newbridge Road, Hull, when he and his parents and eight brothers ran for the aid raid shelter with bombs falling all around and flames shooting forty feet in the air from the nearby church which had been hit by several incendiaries. In later years, he recalled that soon afterwards, he was evacuated to Bourne by train and went to live with Walter Wade and his wife May at No 4 Hereward Street:

I called them Auntie May and Uncle Walter and I cried my eyes out on that first night. I was only a kid, no taller than the table top, but I was there for six years and it turned out to be the most wonderful period of my life. I had lots of love and memories, I went to a good school where I was taught to read within the first few weeks. I became an altar boy at the Abbey Church and later a choirboy, singing at services on Sunday mornings and evenings and in the afternoons I went to Sunday School.

I can recall the many airfields around Bourne, with both British and American personnel, and after going on missions the damaged planes came through the town centre on low loaders, all shot up and often in bits. But at weekends, the flying crews would come into town for the Saturday night dance at the Corn Exchange and to have a good time. The Americans always handed out toys, sweets and cans of drink to the evacuees once a year and they were always good for a packet of chewing gum.

During the six years I lived in Bourne I only ever saw my Dad once and I never saw my mother until I went back to Hull when I was eleven years old. Auntie May and Uncle Walter tried to adopt me but my parents would not hear of it although had I been given the choice, I would have stayed in Bourne because I was happy there. When I returned home, it was to a house of strangers. People like Walter and May Wade deserve a medal for all they did for the evacuees and the love they gave me.

There were other evacuations at regular intervals over the next three years. Among them was Marjorie Spencer, then aged 13, who arrived on 21st May 1941. “There were only three girls in our small party”, she said, “and we all came from the Estcourt Street Board School in Hull which was later bombed. We caught a train to Grantham and then got the bus to Bourne and on arrival we were taken to the Corn Exchange where the WVS ladies were waiting and we were allocated our homes.”

She was billeted with local grocer Jack Smith and his wife Hannah at their home in Mill Drove but soon became part of the family, staying on after the war and she still lives in Bourne.

When the Estcourt Street Board School was destroyed during an air raid in 1942, a large party of pupils arrived from Hull accompanied by several teachers. They made the trip from Hull by bus to the ferry that took them across the Humber, escorted by Royal Navy patrol boats, to Immingham where they caught a train to Essendine, on the main east coast main line, and then they were transferred to a local train for the final leg of the journey to Bourne.

On arrival, they were marched in a crocodile from the railway station to the Corn Exchange where the WVS ladies were waiting and small parties of children were then taken around Bourne to the various homes selected by the billeting officer and the householders came out and chose the children they wanted to live with them. By early evening, most had been allocated a family and were settling into their new homes while others were sent to Bourne House in West Street, a large property that had been vacated by local solicitor Cecil Bell in 1940 and bought by Kesteven District Council for use as dormitory accommodation.

Bourne House which was used to house some of the evacuees

Another evacuee was Dennis Staff, aged 11, who was billeted with Ernest and Lilian Grummitt at No 42 Burghley Street and his young brother Gordon, aged only 5, went to stay with a family two doors along while his elder brother Norman, aged 13, was allocated to a family in West Road. “Mr and Mrs Grummitt’s son Maurice had joined the Royal Navy and I was given his room”, recalled Dennis. “It was all very strange at first but we soon settled in and looking back now I realised that my time in Bourne changed my life for the better.”

The boys and girls were soon participating in the life of the town. Most of them attended the primary school but accommodation was limited and so overflow classes were held in the schoolroom at the Baptist Church in West Street which was taken over by Kesteven County Education Authority in 1940 in order to create additional classroom space. The authority paid an annual rental of £10 plus rates, heating and lighting costs and the wages of a caretaker. The threat of aid raids meant that all windows were blacked out to prevent lights from showing after dark and a blast screen was erected in front of the two main windows in the schoolroom.

Staffing also proved difficult but some teachers who accompanied the children from Hull stayed on and resided in the town, among them a Miss Topham who taught shorthand, typing and book keeping.

The evacuees remained until the war ended in the summer of 1945 although it was the early months of 1946 before arrangements were made for them to return home. But their stay in Bourne had made a lasting impression. Some later married local girls and had families while many others returned regularly to visit the friends they had made. None forgot their wartime experience and many remembered those days with satisfaction and even pleasure.
 

In September 2004, Dennis Staff wrote an open letter to the local newspapers to coincide with the 65th anniversary of the outbreak of the war, thanking the town for its hospitality and generosity. He wrote:

It is with deepest gratitude that I thank you Bourne. You willingly opened your homes to dozens of strange children from Hull who were frightened and afraid but it was an enlightening experience that gave me confidence and determination for the future. My evacuation to Bourne opened up a new life for me, teaching many values which I still cherish, and I am truly grateful to you all. I wonder how many people in Bourne today would open up their homes and turn their daily routine into chaos to provide a place of safety for strange children who spoke with an odd dialect. It is only in my old age that I can appreciate exactly the inconvenience they endured.

Dennis Staff had subsequently emigrated to Canada and joined the Royal Canadian Navy where he had a distinguished career as a naval intelligence officer, later seconded to NATO and working for the Canadian government on the space shuttle. He retired to live at Cumberland, Ottawa, the Canadian capital, where he remained active with the Lions Club International of which he became regional chairman. He died on 25th February 2015, aged 82.