Teaching in Troubled Times, Under Difficult Conditions

Childhood Education, Winter 2003/2004 by Williston, Judy, Grossman, Sue

In a past column, we wrote about our fascination with England and with British primary education, past and present (Grossman & Williston, 1999). As we visited English schools and spoke with friends there, we became interested in an event during World War II that involved young children. Beginning in 1939, thousands of children from urban areas that were designated potential bombing targets, such as London, Bristol, and Plymouth, were evacuated to villages in the countryside. They boarded with families strange to them, sometimes for as long as four years. We were struck by the irony of a scheme that had the best motivation-saving the lives of thousands of children-but also had the potential to be emotionally devastating to the children and their families.

We wondered what this experience was like for the children, for their families left behind, for the people who took them in, and for the teachers who taught them. What was their new life like? Did they adapt readily to life in the country? What was school life like? How did teachers cope with the flood of new pupils? As we considered these questions, we could see parallels with disastrous events and conditions that children today must face. We believe it is important to connect with our past in an effort to understand it, avoid repeating it, learn from it, and help children today and in the future cope with difficult experiences.

A Time Almost Forgotten

Clovelly, North Devon, England, is remarkable, if not unique, among English villages. The majority of its cottages and shops lie along either side of a steep cobbled street called "Up-Along" (or "Down-Along," depending on where one stands) that rises at an angle of about 45 degrees from the small harbor off Bideford Bay, an arm of the North Atlantic. This picturesque village, old enough to be recorded in the Domesday Book (compiled in 1085-1086), has graced postcards and travel brochures for years.

At the New Inn (built in the 1600s), we talked to Sheila Ellis, a lifelong Clovelly resident, about her memories of attending English primary schools in the late 1930s to mid-1940s. She offered a fascinating glimpse into a way of life that has largely disappeared, although some of these small village school buildings remain intact and are still in use today. In addition, Ellis held us spellbound with stories about child evacuees in Clovelly during World War II when she was a teenager.

Ellis remembers when the groups of children came to Clovelly from London, Bristol, and Plymouth:

We could only go to school half a day; there wasn't enough space so we took turns, and the children who had to stay a way from school would go for a walk . . . a nature study walk or somewhere on the beach. The boys dug Victory gardens and patches of melons; the girls learned to sew. It was pretty good. There was a wonderful feeling of companionship. We were all in the same boat and getting away from the actual school. [People in] America and Australia sent food parcels, and that helped out.

School was pretty good in those years. We had these evacuee teachers who taught us different songs which we'd never heard. We learned to read and write, and to add. We learned history and geography, and scripture was also taught. The school was on Wrinkleberry Lane; it's still a beautiful building with wildflowers on all sides. We'd go up in the morning after we'd had porridge. There was no electricity in those days. We were all warmly dressed; we'd come home again for lunch and back in the afternoon, five days a week . . . 9 o'clock to 4. That was the way it all went. Holidays were one month in August, two weeks at Christmas, and two weeks at Easter, (personal interview, 2000)

Vicki Norman, who was a child evacuee in Clovelly during the Plymouth blitz, remembers those days as well:

Children were being evacuated in 1939 to Clovelly and integrated with the village children. Here you had a little village, which had 36 children, and suddenly on a Monday morning there were 200 children who turned up to be educated. You can imagine what panic that caused the Clovelly teachers. Teachers were being lost to the war efforts; they were integrated into the services. So the standard of education fell. Also the accommodations [were insufficient] for the children, and sometimes classes had to be held outdoors. (personal interview, 2000)

Norman has collected her own and others' memories from that time in her book Scattered Homes - Broken Hearts (2002). The book consists of former evacuees' stories of their childhood, of miseries and difficulties, of happiness and hopefulness, stories of what life was like during their young years in a village far from home. The author also includes stories of teachers and the stresses they experienced while coping with new children in a strange environment. An ex-evacuee from London, Harry Clement, adds his vivid recollections to those of many others in his book, No Time To Kiss Goodbye (1995). Clement retired to Clovelly after years of service in the London Metropolitan Police, New Scotland Yard, where he ended his career as Detective Chief Superintendent; he was awarded the British Empire Medal for gallantry in 1966. In 1990 and 1999, Ellis, Clement, and Norman brought many former child evacuees back to Clovelly for weekends of joyous tears, shared memories, and stories of those early informative years.