Yesterday we spoke about one of the most unsettling parts of wartime evacuation: children arriving in unfamiliar towns and villages and waiting while strangers decided whose homes they would go to.
But imagine getting through that journey with your brother or sister beside you, perhaps the only familiar person you had left, and then discovering that you were not going to be allowed to stay together.
Today I want to find out about the evacuee siblings who were separated after they arrived, why it happened and whether they were able to see each other again.
For many children, leaving Mum and Dad was frightening enough. A brother or sister could give them a little security. They had travelled together, knew the same home, missed the same parents and understood exactly what the other child was going through.
Then the billeting process could take even that away.
Children were usually evacuated as part of school groups, and when they reached their destination they had to be found places in local homes. Some people could accommodate two or more children, but others had room for only one. In some places, prospective foster families effectively chose the children they were prepared to take.
Keeping brothers and sisters together could be difficult. Research into the evacuation has found that siblings hoping to be billeted together could actually be among the last children chosen because taking them meant accepting two, three or sometimes more children rather than one.
Age could make things even more complicated too. Older and younger siblings might attend different schools and travel in different groups, and the availability of suitable billets could determine where each child finally ended up.
For the children involved, this could make an already frightening experience considerably worse.
One former evacuee, Irene Mead, was 13 when she was evacuated from Birmingham to Stratford-upon-Avon with her two younger brothers, aged 11 and nine. When they arrived, the children were split up.
Irene remembered crying on her first night because she missed her brothers.
But her story had a happier twist. She discovered that they had been billeted in the house next door. After that, the siblings were able to see one another every day.
Others were determined not to let themselves be separated at all.
One evacuee who was eight years old when sent to Denham in 1939 later recalled arriving with a 13-year-old brother. The children insisted that they would not be split up. It caused difficulties while homes were being found, but eventually somebody agreed to take them both.
Not every separation was caused by a shortage of space. In one later study of former evacuees, a woman identified as Wendy remembered being separated from her sister because her sister had an infection. Decades afterwards, it was still one of the first memories she associated with evacuation. She described the separation as terribly upsetting.
Whether separated siblings could see each other afterwards depended largely on where they had been placed. Some, like Irene and her brothers, were fortunate enough to live only doors apart and could meet regularly. Others might be in different houses around the same village or town and still see one another at school.
But if they were sent farther apart, meetings could become much more difficult. Letters, postcards and occasional visits might be the only contact they had.
Evacuation was intended to protect children from bombing, and for many it undoubtedly did.
But safety came with an emotional price.
For a frightened child standing in a strange village, a brother or sister might have been the last little piece of home they had left.
And sometimes, even that was taken away.
No comments:
Post a Comment