1944: William Boyd (Editor): Evacuation in Scotland
A Record of Events and Experiments
A large section of the book is a record of events and experiments concerning the evacuation of children during WW 2 and its resulting social and educational problems caused by this. Part of the report is an historical account of the actual evacuation followed by reports on three sociological studies.
It all started with The Anderson Report.
On 24th May 1938 Sir Samuel Hoare announced in the House of Commons that a Committee had been appointed to consider the various aspects of the problem of transferring persons from areas which were likely to be exposed to continuous air attack. . .
The transference of large numbers of people from their homes and accustomed surroundings to other and often unfamiliar areas is not a task to be undertaken lightly. It raises problems of great complexity and difficulty at every stage, whether it be the collection and transportation of the refugees or their reception, accommodation and feeling at the other end.
All the services which are delicately adjusted to meet the needs of the community on the present distribution of the population would have to be refashioned to deal with the new situation. Both in areas from which persons are drawn, and in the country districts to which they are taken, social problems and questions of public order of great complexity would be bound to arise.
William Boyd himself followed this up with this entertaining snippet.
On Friday, 1st September 1939, evacuation began. Before the morning’s milk had been received in the homes, before the daily newspaper had arrived, the quiet of towns and cities was disturbed by the hurried patter of feet and the ecited voices of children. At street corners strangely garbed figures had taken up position; policeman wearing steel helmets and carrying respirators smilingly waved on parents and youngsters. In some districts tramcars and buses were in unusual demand, patient conductors and conductresses obligingly helping toddlers and mothers to board already overcrowded vehicles. Private motorists willingly offered lifts to those crowded unsuccessfully around tramcar stopping places. All were converging on schools.
In classrooms mothers awkwardly fitting themselves into the small desks renewed acquaintance with the place where, as children they had learned their lessons. After unavailing efforts to keep the whole family perched on the neighbouring desks, an exasperated mother’s admonition of. ‘Ah’ll sort you!’ was followed by the belated consideration, ‘My! Teacher, I dinna ken how you get on wi’ forty or fifty weans a’ the time! Whereupon mothers joined in the conversation, and teacher and parents found a common bond of friendship.
As the evacuees emerged from the school, an appeal from the teacher in charge led to a rush of volunteers to convey the luggage of mothers and children and to carry toddlers to the railway station.
Good-humoured railway officials shepherded groups to appropriate stances. Songs from the platform were answered by cheers from the barrier. The only thing missing was a band playing ‘will ye no’ come back again?’. When the train arrived, each group enterd its carriage in an orderly manner. A whistle sounded, the train started: the exodus had begun.
Alas, on the journey it was not possible to relax. Children kept bobbing up and down. At one moment it was cows in a field, at another a colliery invited attention. Woods and rivers were not without interest. Rabbits scurrying in their burrows created a stampede of eager sightseers from one end of the carriage to the other. Then, were there not in the parcels eatables to be devoured? And bottles of lemonade, hitherto cunningly concealed, were proudly brought forth. To crown all discoveries some youthful Columbus, roaming to the end of the corridor found the lavatory. A queue was rapidly formed, but a teacher, with seeming intuition, discovered another and promptly reserved it for the girls.
Yet the journey began to lose interest; paper comics, ceasing to appeal were thrown aside. Grimy and tired the children became fractious. Babies began to fret and mothers began to worry. Teachers started community singing, and, best of all, announced that the destination was near at hand and possibly tea would be awaiting them. At last the train slowed down, all crowded to the windows to see what the place was like. Fields everywhere; a few cottages; then streets and shops. ‘miss, please Miss, are there any sweetie ships?’ ‘Aw, I dinny see ony picture houses.’ ‘My it’s just a wee toon!’
The book also identifies sending and receiving areas for children refugees as follows.
Sending areas were Edinburgh, Rosyth, Glasgow, Clydebank and Dundee.
Receiving areas for Glasgow children were: ‘landward areas in’ Aberdeen, Argyll, Ayr, Bute, Dumfries, Kinross, Kirkcudbright, Lanark, Perth, Renfrew, Stirling and Wigtown.
About 106,000 children were registered for evacuation with a further 46,000 remaining in Glasgow - evacuation was not compulsory. The parents of a further 26,000 children made their own private arrangements. Approximately 50% of teachers of all these children offered to accompany them to continue with the children’s education.
Ten mansion houses were utilised as hostels or boarding schools to provide accommodation for 650 pupils, teachers and domestic staff. Eight of these were:
Cally Place Hotel, Gatehouse of Fleet: Secondary aged children, drawn from markedly different social grades and represent most of the secondary schools under the control of Glasgow Education Authority.’Cargen House, outskirts of Dumfries: ’70 Roman Catholic boys between ages 12 and 15.’
Milton Park, Dalry: ’66 primary and secondary girls.’
Netherlaw, Abbey Burnfoot: ’72 girls junior and secondary stage from Pollokshields and Queen’s Park Secondary Schools.’
Slogarie, Parish of Blamaghie: ‘girls at Holyrood and St Bonaventure’s Secondary Schools.’
Airds House, Mossdale: ‘opened as a school/hostel by a party of 40 physically defective boys.’
Bargaly, Newton Stewart: ‘it was occupied in February 1940 by myopic children, and in September of that year by a party of 35 mentally defective boys.’
Gelston Castle, Castle Douglas: ’40 mentally defective boys, their teachers and domestic staff.’
And all this just at the moment when John Aitkenhead, his wife Morag and a very few others were trying to get a small and controversial free school up and running.
Proper records are thin on the ground for the first few war years, but by 1942, mainly for financial reasons, Bill MacKinnon and then Morag Aitkenhead began to keep formal records for each pupil attending Kilquhanity.
An analysis of these records reveal some information about pupils attending Kilquhanity during 1942. For example:
If this data proves correct, 28 children were registered in 1942 to which we can add Neill Aitkenhead and possibly a few others who were around in 1941. Unfortunately, the record does not indicate date of birth.
The first item of interest is the spread of ‘Home’ places. Only 6 of the children come from what can be described as rural homes: Castle Douglas, Borgue – both in Galloway; Troon and Peebles. The other 22 are from industrial towns and cities all of which can be considered as targets for German bombing raids.
Second is the length of stay of some of the children. Some of them only stayed at Kilquhanity for a few months, fourteen stayed for less than a year. Linking these two is the likelihood that these children were placed at Kilquhanity by their parents or carers to escape bombing raids.
Although important as regard generating income, short-stay pupils would not have been conducive to establishing rhythm, routine and a sense of community.
Indeed, the fact that the school survived the 1940s is an indication of John Aitkenhead’s faith in the effectiveness of a system of education based on “freedom” that he was determined to see through.
