Revision Diary

Evacuation

Evacuation.

ISSUES

1. Evacuation began BEFORE the declaration of war.

2. The government removed the women and children so that morale would not fall when they began dying in the bombing raids that were expected. The government was VERY anxious that children should go.

3. Arrangements were - by today's standards - dreadful, and many children ended up in abusive or dirty homes.

4. Many hosts were shocked by the poverty, ignorance and dirtiness of the evacuees - after the war, this led to the Welfare State.

5. Hosting an evacuee was a VERY burdensome task.

6. Many evacuees went home - in the end, morale was better served keeping them at home.

7. How valid are fictional representations of evacuation such as Carrie's War or Goodnight Mr Tom?

Read the e-book page on Evacuation.

FIVE FACTS

1. 1-3 Sep 1939: 827,000 children and 535,000 pregnant mothers were evacuated from towns to the country.

2. Teachers evacuated with their pupils - overload village schools

3. Some excited, some homesick. Some evacuees like Kenneth Williams MUCH PREFERRED their new homes to their real families.

4. Many ignorant - some had never seen farm animals. Some nightmare evacuees – swore/ pee-ed on wallpaper/ had never worn underclothes, eaten food from a table or slept in a bed/ filthy/ naughty/ many wet the bed.

5. Many went home during Phoney War.

Revision Focus

This is a Paper 1- World War Two topic, so think about how you will USE the information to answer sourcework questions.

You will need:

1. A GENERAL UNDERSTANDING of 'what was going on', so you can make intelligent comments on the purpose of the sources.

2. Some FACTUAL KNOWLEDGE so you can assess the factual accuracy of the sources.

This paper is ALL sourcework questions, so make sure you know how to do them.

NOTE PARTICULARLY that there is no choice of questions on this topic - so...

YOU MUST LEARN EVERYTHING.

Links

More key facts on the Revision Sheet.