Press Coverage for 1940s Experience

Education Guardian
18th December 2007.
Primary pupils find out what is was really like to be a child evacuated to the countryside during the war.

"I loved it so, so, so much," says Amie, aged 10. "It didn't feel right," says Chris aged 10. "It was not very comfortable," says Sasha, who is "nine and three-quarters".

Years 5 and 6 of St Mary's church of England Primary School in East Barnet, Herts, have just squeezed out of an Anderson air raid shelter – a tiny, metal underground hut that somehow contains six bunk beds and a chamber pot.

The air raid siren is going off. The children clasp their hands to their ears and scrunch up their eyes. We're in the middle of Bushey, Hertfordshire, learning what life was like for a child evacuee during the second world war. This is the Lincolnsfields Centre, thought to be the only children's residential site in the country to provide a WW2 'evacuees' experience".

"It was very loud," says Evie, 10. "It was the best," says Sasha.
It's day two of their three-day Lincolnsfields experience. Yesterday as the children stepped off their school coach on arriving at the site, a former top secret US Army intelligence base, they were immediately cast into their roles as evacuees.

Francis McLennan, the centre's manager, plays an austere billeting officer, a civilian who assigned homes to children forced to leave their parents behind in the city and move to the countryside.

"Have you got your gas-mask boxes and identity cards, children?" Francis boomed. Some laughed. Others were a little scared. The children were shown what they thought they would have to sleep on for the three days (it wasn't really though). It was a tiny metal bed with lumpy pillows and a tin potty underneath.

Then they were told they would not be allowed plastic bottles of juice, brown bread, or flavoured crisps. "We are on rations after all," Francis reminded them. They were instructed to write letters home describing "the great time they were having", as evacuee children did.

At 8.30 this morning, there was a drilling session. They marched up and down with broomsticks, obeying barked orders.

Today they are visiting a wartime home on the site. The children were told to come dressed in 1940's gear, where possible. It's blazers, caps, shorts and long socks for the boys, dresses for the girls.

Beetroot blusher
Janet McLennan, Francis's wife and volunteer at the centre, plays a housewife in pinnie and headscarf. The children paint brown lines on their legs to pretend they are wearing stockings and daub their cheeks with beetroot juice as a makeshift blusher. They try on hats, and wash clothes using a scrubbing washboard and a mangle.

"It was fun to see how they would dress," says Evie.
Everything, from the spam to the dried egg and jam, has been painstakingly labelled to look authentic. Some, including the monopoly set, milk bottles and pram, actually are.

"The wonders of eBay," says Janet.
The pupils have been divided into groups of about 10. While one set looks around the home, another is taken for a ride in a 1942Dodge weapons-carrier. Philip Knight, a volunteer who plays GI Phil, is wearing jump boots and green trousers and shirt. In a 1940's street, the outside toilet has been blown up and the sirens sound.

The children visit the centre's farm with farmhand Pete, to see how the Land Girls lived and learn how, when desperate, wartime Britons ate rats and rabbits. At the "rationing room" we are given brown envelopes of farthings half-crowns and other coinage and asked to calculate how many oranges, eggs and flour we might buy.

On the final day, it's VE day. The children make jam and cheese sandwiches and end-of-war posters. Run Rabbit Run is playing in the background. We’re even allowed flavoured crisps.

"It's been a total success" says the Deputy Head of the school, "the children haven't stopped talking about it, and it gave them a fantastic insight into the war years. It enabled them to empathise with the children living through it."

The evacuee experience at Lincolnsfields has been going just eight months, and is already drawing in primary schools and youth groups from as far a field as Glasgow and Birmingham. It's a charity, staffed mostly by volunteers, and it keeps its prices low – at between £55 and £90 for the three days – because it particularly wants economically disadvantaged children to be able to take part.

Future in the balance
But there's just one snag: Lincolnsfields’ future lies in the balance. It is running on a deficit of £50,000 a year because its applications to the Big Lottery Fund have been rejected. "Getting money from the lottery is a lottery," says Francis.

"The people who give out the grants seem to look favourably on frontline work, by which I mean work with children who have serious educational problems," says Francis. "But what about the rest of us? We're still very important. Places like ours give children the chance to get out of the school environment."

Karen Bush, Chief executive of the Institute for Outdoor Learning which represents residential education centre, agrees. "We are desperately pushing the government's Education Outside the Classroom manifesto, launched two years ago. There is funding available, but it is for those who are disadvantaged, economically or physically, for example. Anyone who isn't disadvantaged won't get anything. There are also still problems generated by the Olympics. Some so-called non-essential services are being squeezed out. It is going to get worse until the public really understands the benefits of taking children outside the classroom."

A spokesperson from the Heritage Lottery Fund says competition is very high for grants. "We have to make tough decisions based on which projects offer the greatest public benefits and value for money," she says.

"Over the past 13 years, 85% of Heritage Lottery Fund projects totalling more than £2.8bn have benefited children and young people, and we have given more than £15m to projects linked to the history of the second world war and to people’s experiences of the war years."

Meanwhile, in an act of desperation, Lincolnsfields has started a petition to get funds. "It can cost thousands to repair a leak, so we have to negotiate favourable rates with the water board."

Footnote: The charity received a Heritage Lottery Grant of £41,000 in April 2008.

Click other press coverage to read more.

1940s Events Gallery

Children at War—The Evacuees Experience

Dig for Victory garden

Militaria Collections