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717 — the number on the tags all the children of my school wore to make sure they were kept together during the evacuation from London.
The heroes of the evacuation were the teachers and their wives who accompanied them (most women teachers were single in those days). They shepherded the children safely to their destinations, saw them into the homes in which they were billeted and stayed on hand in their own billets to support and comfort their children through the traumatic experience.
Once settled, they found ways of keeping the children occupied through the day — games in the park and in the woods, nature walks, informal open-air classes — until accommodation could be found for formal teaching.

Everywhere we went, of course, the teachers had to make sure we were carrying our gasmasks in their cardboard boxes and that we didn’t drop them in streams or use them to bash each other on the head.
After a few months we also had identity cards to carry. (I don’t suppose I am alone in using my wartime registration number as my password for this site.) They gave us a feeling of security from enemy infiltration, though I doubt now whether they were much use for that purpose. But they were also good for morale, helping us each to feel part of a great nation fighting for a great cause. It wouldn’t be the same in peacetime.

Our first ‘classroom’ was a shed behind the pub. It had a corrugated iron roof which meant that in heavy rain the teacher couldn’t be heard. One side was open and chickens ran in and out. A few yards away was a pigsty whose inhabitants had a habit of starting to grunt just as the class had been brought to silence.
After a few weeks there we moved to the luxury of the local Girl Guide headquarters in the converted stables of one of the big houses. We were enjoined to take great care of it, and each Friday a few boys would be chosen to stay behind to seep, scrub and polish. This was a popular chore, because while it was in progress a maid would come down from the house with sixpence for each worker (that’s nearly £1 in real 2005 money). This would be disposed of at the sweetshop down the road.

Then we were found a spare classroom in the local primary school. One day while there, after seeing an army motor-cyclist deliver a message, we were called outside and told to line the road to cheer the King who was about to pass on his way to visit some army units.
We cheered heartily, and from where I was standing I had a good view into the car where the King was sitting in army uniform and saluting.
The visible presence of the King and Queen counted a great deal in maintaining national unity and morale.

In September 1940 I returned from evacuation to join a new school. Before that, in the middle of August I went home for a weekend, and it was then that, standing on a high point in Brockwell Park, I saw the red glow in the sky to the north which, my father explained, came from the fires burning at the docks after the first mass German raid.

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