Evacuees

Christmas Eve at the Front

An interesting letter has just been received by Mrs Packer, of Broadclyst, from her husband, Corpl Packer of A Company, 1st Battalion Devonshire Regiment, who is serving with the Expeditionary Force in Northern France. In the course of a letter he describes a remarkable incident which occurred on Christmas Eve between the British and German trenches.

Christmas for the children in Bideford 15th Dec 1941

3,000 schoolchildren - native and visitors - will have a free Cinema show this Christmas.

Bideford Entertainments Ltd, Strand Cinema and Palace Theatre, Bideford Ltd are repeating their kindness of last year and are giving the whole accommodation of both houses on the morning of December 20th and 24th for this purpose.

The home towns have not forgotten their children evacuated here and to encourage children to remain in reception areas the L.C.C., Metropolitan Boroughs, Croydon, Bristol and Plymouth are all sending financial help for Christmas treats. The local teachers have generously accepted responsibility for raising funds for the Devon children so that native and evacuees will have a combined treat in each school.

Happily playing, forgetting Blitz Terrors 9th June 1942

Tragedy seems far from these happy groups of toddlers, but it cannot help being in the background.

These pictures may serve as a reminder of the great part Devon and other reception areas are playing in caring for the younger generation from more vulnerable areas and of the fact that the war will leave us for many years to come a legacy of stricken lives in need of our warm and practical sympathy.

Photographs show some of the 30 toddlers at Carleton House War Nursery, Buckleigh, where they are being cared for after being rendered homeless, and some, orphans, through Nazi bombing.

A particularly sad case is that of Rita Hay, second right in the bottom group. She is the only survivor of a family of ten.

Child population rose hundreds overnight 25th June 1965

25 years ago Bideford and Torrington districts received the biggest influx they had ever known.

Six consecutive nights long trains brough hundreds of children and helpers to the locality. They were the first official evacuees to be received in the area. Bideford Borough received about 1,100 evacuee schoolchildren in June, Bideford Rural district 750, Torrington Borough 280 and Torrington Rural district 1,220.

Not everyone responded to the voluntary billeting appeal and in a few cases compulsory powers had to be used but, more happily, some people who had at first declined to take in evacuees were so touched when the children arrived that there was a change of heart.

Inevitably there were misfits, but on the whole the children quickly settled happily in their new homes.

There are those on whom the locality cast its spell, who never went back and have almost forgotten they were "Londoners."