What it was really like
to be an evacuee?

Being an evacuee meant leaving your family, your home, your pets, your toys and everything with which you were familiar.

It meant being taken to an unknown destination, where you would have to live with strangers, trying to learn their ways and trying to fit in. Sometimes there were misunderstandings and feelings that you were not really wanted.

Suddenly you had to be grown up and responsible for yourself and your belongings. Somehow you had to hide your feelings of homesickness and never talk about it.

If you felt unhappy or not well there was no mother there to comfort you and make you feel better.

When you heard the news on the radio about air raids on London or other built up areas you worried about your parents and others, were they alright, were they safe, would your real home still be there when the time finally came for you to go home?

The day you were evacuated changed your life forever, it would never be the same again, even when you finally went home, if you ever did.
That’s what it was like to be an evacuee.