What a brilliant day we’ve had! To enrich our historical learning, we decided to become evacuees for the day.
Our special day began with finding the classroom looking rather different; the tables were in rows and we were seated in age order – youngest at the front, oldest at the back. With our identity labels round our necks, we went into the hall where we were greeted by the Billeting Officer – Mrs Branagan. After a quick lice and clean nail check, some of us were selected by host families – we all wanted to be picked. We learnt that some host families put their evacuees to work and saw them as an opportunity for manual labour. Whilst other families had different criteria for a good evacuee.
After the Billeting process had finished, it was time to go to class with our new teacher – Miss Branagan! We made sure our families back in London knew we were safe with a postcard home. Miss Branagan was then very strict and made us write lines – we wouldn’t like to have to do this everyday!
It was then time to walk to church to mark Remembrance. We were very excited to be introduced to the Aston congregation at the beginning of the service as the new children from London. A few of us read out prayers and bible readings before four children recited ‘In Flanders Fields’ by heart. As this was, and still is, such an important poem, Daniel read out his own thoughtful response to it.
Having observed the silence at eleven and sung ‘Peace Like a River’, it was time to return to our new school and continue celebrating the special day. We enjoyed time painting with watercolours before going to lunch. Some of us with packed lunches had very authentically wrapped lunches. For those of us having school dinners, beef cobbler and bubble and squeak was on the menu – it was delicious (thank you Joyce and Heather)!
Overall, it was a very successful day which we all enjoyed. It’s hard to imagine what children in the 1940s had to go through – we feel very grateful to have what we have. A big THANK YOU to our parents for helping immerse us into this special day.
