Evacuation and Its Transformative Impact on Britain

However these sources are very useful, to start with the extract from the book is written from the point of view of an evacuee from a large city, who stays with someone in the countryside. The foster parents make an assumption that they are "too poor to afford a pair of slippers". Although the real reason they don't have slippers, is because the amount of clothing they were able to carry.

This would be the attitude that some foster parents would have had, that the children they were fostering were poor, because they were from rural areas.

This was a common misconception among a lot of foster parents in the countryside, however this misunderstanding started the opening up of Britain; country folk had little or no understanding of the city children, all they knew is what they saw, and what they saw was children covered in dirt and lice.

After the war many rich influential people from the country began to demand more from their MP's to help these poor deprived children, this improved communications between the countryside and the cities and also helped start the first free health service the NHS.

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The source also shows that the children in the novel were having a good time because they didn't get angry at them for the mistake about the slippers they simply giggled.

Source D says in one line of the poster "All you need do is enroll your name with the local authority" While most would look at this and think the Government are just trying to make it as quick and easy as possible to help things along, there are some who would simply see the chance to get a child without having to have a police check so you can imagine there were quite a few unsavory people such as pedophiles and abusers that signed up just giving their name and getting a child that they had with them for the next four years.

This backs up my own knowledge about lack of organisation the Government put into evacuation despite having realised many years ago that in the event of another war evacuation was likely. It is a well used phrase "but when I looked at their faces my heart melted and I couldn't say no" I imagine this is what happened when people saw the picture of the two smiling children featured on it. Half of the background is of a lovely countryside scene with sunshine, perhaps Scotland where it was to be circulated.

The other half however is a blacked out city with planes and bombs. Anyone whose heart melted at the little children would certainly want to take them away from that dreary scene. Also the language used in the text is very persuasive using such things as "kindly folk", "greatly helping" and "take them out of a danger zone where desperate peril may come at any moment" which would convince many people to foster such small innocent children and take them away from harm.

When in the countryside the children gained many experiences, not only did a lot of children's health improve with the clean air but many children also got to do many things like work on farms, carry on/start education, learn how to use many different kinds of machinery and make many new friends, for many of the younger children evacuated this would be the only memories of a home they would have.

The interview in source E shows one of the biggest success's of WW2, the opening up of Britain and also the setting up of the NHS. The father being questioned evidently has no idea what people from the countryside are really like, he assumes they are all poor dirty jobless people who wouldn't be able to take good care of his son.