{"id":576,"date":"2020-06-30T12:20:16","date_gmt":"2020-06-30T11:20:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/oral-history\/?p=576"},"modified":"2023-01-19T18:29:16","modified_gmt":"2023-01-19T18:29:16","slug":"i-never-knew-which-school-i-was-going-to-be-in-disrupted-education-in-world-war-two","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/oral-history\/2020\/06\/30\/i-never-knew-which-school-i-was-going-to-be-in-disrupted-education-in-world-war-two\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I never knew which school I was going to be in\u2019: Disrupted education in World War Two"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Over ten years ago, Liz O\u2019Donnell<\/a> recorded the memories of more than 40 people in the North East who, as children during the 2<\/em>nd<\/em><\/sup> World War, had experienced the huge dislocation caused by mass evacuation. Current discussions about the damaging impact of disrupted education caused by the pandemic led her to dig out her research notes, to look at the evacuees\u2019 recollections of their own disturbed schooling, especially their feelings about its long-term effects. All the examples here are of evacuation to villages in Northumberland, mostly from the industrial areas of Tyneside. Summaries and recordings of all the interviews are available at Northumberland Archives<\/a>, Woodhorn. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

In looking over the interviews with evacuees, a marked difference from the current situation is that children were removed from their parents. For successful learning, children need a stable environment, so for the evacuees, the billet they were allocated could be crucial. None of them knew where they would be going when Operation Pied Piper <\/a>was launched on 1st<\/sup> September 1939. 12 year old Alan, evacuated from Tynemouth to Coupland, recalled: \u2018We had no idea where we were going to finish up that day but I was quite happy. I had some money in a purse I had been given and I was just ready to go and enjoy myself\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In common with many other interviewees, he was surprised at the tiny village school catering for 5 to 14 year olds \u2013 two rooms, with the infants in one and all the other year groups taught together in the other. To cater for the increased numbers, initially they were taught in shifts; evacuees in the morning, locals in the afternoon, or vice versa. Later, as city children drifted home, those remaining were fully integrated with the other pupils. Alan reckoned he was about a year ahead educationally of the others in his class, which \u2018appealed to my lazy nature\u2019 and although he thoroughly enjoyed informal learning about the countryside from his host, he was \u2018excited to leave school\u2019 after a couple of years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A common assumption, based on books like Nina Bawden\u2019s \u2018Carrie\u2019s War\u2019<\/a>, is that children went to only one or two billets, staying there for the duration. However, I was surprised at how much continuous moving these interviewees experienced. The 47 evacuees interviewed stayed in 105 billets between them, with only 15 staying in one place. Stanley, from Tottenham, London, was not unusual in being evacuated repeatedly. Firstly he went to a farm in Cambridgeshire, returning after about 6 months because the \u2018war was not going anywhere\u2019. When the bombing really started, he was off again to two different billets in Wales. As he didn\u2019t like the second one, back he went to Tottenham: \u2018I can remember all the bombing and the doodlebugs and all that\u2026But it got too bad and they said \u201cWell, we\u2019d better send you away again.\u201d\u2019 This time it was to Bedlington, a mining village, staying with family friends. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018So whether it did have an effect on my education \u2013 because I never knew which school I was going to be in \u2013 I was in different schools all over the country\u2026.and in between I was coming back and going to my local school.\u2019 <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Several interviewees felt village school teaching did not prepare them for the eleven-plus, putting a blight on their future life chances, but those who passed the exam had to endure being re-evacuated somewhere else to join their new school. Adjusting once back home could also be difficult. Irene (from Newcastle), only five when she was evacuated, was very happy attending the village school, so by the end of 1944, she:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018didn\u2019t want to come home. I wanted to be with my mum but I didn\u2019t want to leave Whittingham. I can remember being very, very upset and I didn\u2019t like Todd\u2019s Nook School when I went back there. There were too many people.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Just as\ntoday, there was a definite class divide in the evacuation experiences. Some wealthy\nfamilies joined up with others to share their governess in a makeshift school,\nand private schools were often evacuated to a country house or hotel, operating\nas boarding schools. Gordon, a doctor\u2019s son from Gateshead, was evacuated to\nEslington Hall with Newcastle Prep School and recalled a \u2018Boys\u2019 Own\u2019 existence:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was a practice area from the Milfield air field and Spitfires and Hurricanes used to fly overhead, to our delight\u2026For entertainment we initially used to play Cops and Robbers or Cowboys and Indians in the woods on the estate but as the war progressed we formed a Wolf Cub Pack\u2026At nights we used to have debates, mock trials, and in the winter, with the heavy snows, we had wonderful snowball fights\u2026<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Each interview ended with the person being invited to reflect on the impact they believed the experience had had on the rest of their lives. Some looked back with nostalgia at a dramatic episode which provided many well-rehearsed anecdotes. Several had stayed in touch with their host families and one had become so enamoured with rural life that he bought his own farm after retiring! But others acknowledged the trauma that this disjuncture had caused them. Doris, the 10th<\/sup> of 15 children, spoke of periods of depression, caused, she believed, by having to supress her emotions while living with strangers. Foster was evacuated three times, the third time to Dukes House Wood, a specially built camp school near Hexham. He liked it there but was never visited by his parents, who became \u2018like strangers\u2019, a not untypical sensation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Educationally, opinions differed, from \u2018the best years of my life\u2019 to feeling the village school was inferior to their schools back on Tyneside, leaving them unable to fulfil their potential. Mulling over the entire range of the interviews, I couldn\u2019t help feeling that what influenced the interviewees\u2019 response to their experience, their emotional resilience or lack of it, and their ability to overcome educational disruption, often lay in how much stability the environment they found themselves in was able to provide. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over ten years ago, Liz O\u2019Donnell recorded the memories of more than 40 people in the North East who, as children during the 2nd World War, had experienced the huge dislocation caused by mass evacuation. Current discussions about the damaging … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7121,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,9,166],"tags":[130,232,113,127,37,82,106,17,190,114],"class_list":["post-576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reflection","category-research","category-think-piece","tag-education","tag-evacuation","tag-interview","tag-local-history","tag-memory","tag-newcastle","tag-north-east","tag-oral-history","tag-war","tag-world-war-two"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/oral-history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/oral-history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/oral-history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/oral-history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7121"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/oral-history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=576"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/oral-history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":580,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/oral-history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576\/revisions\/580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/oral-history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/oral-history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/oral-history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}