Life during World War II in London

During the six years Britain was at war, 1939–45, life was frequently hard for Londoners, particularly the children. Food and clothing were rationed and in short supply. Bombing caused fear, injury, death and destruction, and London was a main target for enemy bombing during World War II.  The government encouraged parents to send their children away from London for their safety so many families were often separated due to evacuation and fathers going away to fight. Nearly two million children were evacuated from their homes at the start of World War Two; children had to endure rationing, gas mask lessons, living with strangers etc. Children accounted for one in ten of the deaths during the Blitz of London from 1940 to 1941.

Volunteers organised an evacuation programme; children were sent away with their school teachers to live with host families in ‘safe’ areas such as the countryside.

The picture below is a postcard and was one in a series made by a greeting card company for parents to send to their children. The image of happy children it shows offers a positive view of evacuation. This cheerful card hides the reality of life for some child evacuees.

The only way Germany could get at mainland Britain was to bomb it. This occurred during the Blitz and seemed to reinforce the government’s decision to introduce evacuation at the start of the war.
The impact of evacuation on children depended to an extent on which social class you were in at the time. Parents who had access to money made their own arrangements whereas children at private schools based in the cities tended to move out to manor houses in the countryside where children at that school could be, in the main, kept together. But 1.9 million children gathered at rail stations in early September not knowing where they were going nor if they would be split from brothers and sisters who had gathered with them.

It is difficult to know what kind of damage this experience had on the children. Physical damage was visible and could be dealt with but the psychological damage some must have suffered was difficult to measure.

“The forgotten victims of World War Two were the children.”  Juliet Gardiner.