Shropshire Routes to Roots

3. New lives

There are many accounts by children evacuated to Oswestry. Here are just a few examples of their experiences.

Many children had not been to the country before the evacuation. If they had been it was often only for the day. The 1930's was a period known as the Recession. Many of the children who came from Merseyside had been living in extreme poverty. Unemployment was high and many children did not even have the meagre belongings that it was suggested they should come with. For some of the population of Oswestry the differences between country lives and those of the evacuees came as a shock.

For many of the evacuees the experience of living in the country was an exciting and happy change. This newspaper cutting is a description of one child's time in the country: How old was the evacuee who wrote this? What has she not missed about Birkenhead? Do you think she is enjoying her time in the country? Do you think the newspaper would have published her description if she had been unhappy in Oswestry?

Impressions of life in the country. Larger image and transcript, in a new window [35kb] [Reproduced with kind permission of the Oswestry and Border Counties Advertiser]

City children were billeted (living) with country folk and were expected to help. Some had never seen a real cow before. This transcript was circulated widely during the war. It is the description of a cow by an evacuee in the South of England.

Description of a cow. Larger image and transcript, in a new window [64kb] [Shropshire Archives]

This child evacuated to Oswestry remembers:

"I remember going over to the farm for some milk in a can. I was frightened by the cows and on the way back I ran to get over the stile quickly, because they were getting a bit close and I dropped the milk can and cut my finger and I've still got the scar to this day".

[Compiled by Oswestry Heritage Centre]

In the first months of the war very little happened at home. No bombs fell on the cities and parents gradually began to take their children home. They called this the Phoney War. By January 1940 over half the evacuees had returned home. Not all evacuee children returned to their city homes. This group of children evacuated to Welshampton are clearly enjoying their life in the country.

Enjoying life in the country [Reproduced with kind permission of the Oswestry and Border Counties Advertiser]

When the Blitz, the heavy bombing of cities, began in 1940 many children who had returned home had to be re-evacuated.

Parents did occasionally get the opportunity to visit. This evacuee remembers:

"I used to look forward to my parents visiting every 4-6 weeks. Sometimes it was my mother sometimes my father. They couldn't both come together as there was still some family living at home".

['Our Evacuee', Oswestry Heritage Centre]

This account and photograph of parents from Merseyside being reunited with their children appeared in the Shrewsbury Chronicle in December 1939.

Happily Reunited. [Reproduced with kind permission of Shropshire Newspapers]

Open the newspaper cutting. See if you can find out: How many times had the parents visited their children since the evacuation? How many trains were laid on for the visitors? Who met the visitors apart from the children? Why did these people come?

Liverpool parents' day out. Larger image and transcript, in a new window [94kb] [Reproduced with kind permission of the Oswestry and Border Counties Advertiser]

For the first few weeks after the evacuation nobody went to school. This gave the children plenty of time to explore and get into mischief. This evacuee recalls:

"we didn't go to school for a few weeks but this did not bother us. Before long police cars going around asking all Birkenhead children to report to the Assembly rooms at the top of Arthur street. Our own teachers were there but it wasn't like school".

['Our Evacuee', Oswestry Heritage Centre]

Because of the number of children the school day was divided into two. The locals went in the morning and the evacuees in the afternoon.

Another Oswestry evacuee recalls:

"As we only attended half-day school, we used to be taken by our teachers on long nature walks"

Local papers carried pictures of enemy aircraft. Children cut these out and used them for reference. They learnt to identify the sound of different aircraft. The bombers made a different noise when they were loaded with bombs compared to the return trip when they were flying empty.

German troop carriers [Reproduced with kind permission of Shropshire Newspapers]

A local Oswestry girl recalls how the evacuees she had living with her, would lie awake at night listening to the bombers. It was an anxious time for them. Members of their family still lived and worked around the docks of Birkenhead where the planes were headed.

['Our Evacuee', Oswestry Heritage Centre]

Boys in particular were fascinated by enemy aircraft. Many children collected war souvenirs! These boys from the Welsh border are searching for shrapnel left in these bomb craters.

Boys in bomb crater. [Reproduced with kind permission of the Oswestry and Border Counties Advertiser]

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