Schooling for Evacuees

This story has been transcribed and published by Mark Jeffers, with permission from the author.

We didn’t take the war very seriously because we didn’t realise the dangers. Mother did which is probably why she sent us away. We were evacuated from Belfast to place like Enniskillen where the danger was much less. It was like an adventure going away from home until you realised that you wanted to go home again but you couldn’t.

Going to school away from home was very different. You were taught differently as well. I think really a lot of people at my age group missed out on a lot of schooling because of the war. When I was sent away, I was in P3 or P4 and when I went back I was put back in the same class again, whereas in peace time you would have gone up a step. In those days they didn’t put as much emphasis on education. The people who were very smart would have gone ahead but they didn’t really worry about everyone else.

I remember being at this school when I was evacuated and we were all sitting outside on the green. In the country there were three classes in one room, which we didn’t have at the school I went to in Belfast. We were sitting outside in a wee group and I saw this man coming forward towards everybody and I thought, “Where do I know that man from?” and it was my step-father who had come to bring us all home. He just took us all out of school and took us home and that was it. We thought it was great.

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