10:20am Saturday 28th August 2010
Linton Camp Residential School was home to children from Bradford during the Second World War and now former evacuee Doreen Drewry Lehr has written a book about her experiences. She examines the
wider issues of why parents made the often- heartbreaking decision to send their children away, and how the experience left a lasting effect on children like her. She also records the sacrifices of
teachers who did what they were asked with few resources in spartan conditions and a harsh environment.
The school closed in the 1980s and remains empty despite several schemes being put forward for its redevelopment. The last – to turn it into a £4 million holiday complex – was rejected in 2006.
Doreen, originally from Bradford and now living in Washington DC in the United States, went to Linton Camp aged five. The death of her father and the fact that her brother, Keith, was already at the school meant the authorities allowed her to attend at a younger age than usual.
She arrived at Linton Camp carrying a Mickey Mouse gas mask, a suitcase and an identity label.
Using memories of the former teachers, now in their 80s and 90s, and pupils she interviewed, Doreen sets out to honour their wish that “I describe the school so that history will record it as the thriving community it was, echoing with the sound of children’s voices, rather than the sad ruin it is today.”
She adds: “The usual account of working-class British children brought from the slums to middle and upper-class homes in the countryside is the charming stereotype. It is not accurate.
“These young people were separated from everything familiar – family, home, school and community. For some, the experience was a positive one. For others, including me, the evacuation was a traumatic experience that left many of us sceptical of the kindness of strangers and emotional issues that affected our adult lives.”
The first part of Doreen’s book, A Girl’s War, recalls her early childhood in Bradford and her evacuation to Linton Camp in January 1943.
“I’m standing at the gate of the Linton Camp Residential School, feeling very sad and confused,” she writes. “I am five years old. My mother is leaving me here separated from everything familiar to live with strangers. Homesickness sweeps over me in waves, a feeling I will endure in various degrees throughout my life.
“Fighting back the tears, I try to understand why mother will not take me home with her. My body feels numb as though some part of me has closed down, I feel an unfathomable ache, caused by a deep longing for the familiarity of home.”
It was only years later, in 1980, that she discovered why she had been sent away. Her mother, then a widow, needed to work to supplement her 10-shillings-a- week government pension, but her job as a night nurse did not fit into family life.
In the book, Doreen describes life at the residential school and recalls building snowmen on one cold winter afternoon and going on a picnic alongside the River Wharfe during the summer.
“The teachers and staff at Linton Residential School did the best they could for the children with the resources they had. In many cases, the Linton children were better off than those sent to live with families they did not know. While many of those children were well-treated, others went to families who used them to work in the house or on the land to replace male workers who had gone to war.”
She adds that one of her “most wonderful” memories of Linton was receiving a Raggedy Anne doll and a Raggedy Anne and Andy book from the American Foundation. They were prized possessions for many years.
“The people who sent these wonderful gifts also wrote letters to me. Unfortunately, the Government censored every letter from abroad before we received it. Names and addresses and any information that could identify where they lived or who they were had been removed or blacked out. We were never able to thank the people who were so kind to us.”
Her book – part-memoir, part-detective story – tells of a wartime experiment that left Doreen with a sense of a missed childhood and a mission to find “witnesses to my youth” and rediscover the places where she was an evacuee.
“The research for this book was not easy on any level,” she said. “It is difficult to shine a light on a past you have spent a lifetime forgetting. It took more than 20 years for me to reach a place where I could speak about my childhood experience. And it took many more years before I could write about the things I discovered.
“I felt it important enough to examine and write about a lost childhood. What did I learn about myself from the detective work? What did I learn about my mother? What did I learn about the separation of children from their parents? What was my verdict on the British evacuation? More importantly, what affect did the evacuation have on evacuees?
“We cannot, nor should we, judge Second World War parents through the lens of Britain’s welfare state that now provides from the cradle to the grave. We need to view them through the prism of the 1930s and 1940s. To do otherwise is to judge them at a distinct and unfair disadvantage.
“Today’s parents do not fear they will go hungry if they cannot work. They have numerous social programmes to protect them if they lose their jobs. Wartime parents did what they could with the information they had. Given the lack of communication and the difficulty of their decisions, we should congratulate rather than condemn these men and women for their sacrifices and courage.”
Doreen’s research brought an unexpected finding – she discovered that her ancestors had lived in Linton for generations.
“My great grandparents, Catherine Davies and John Marshall, were married in 1876 at Linton Church, a few minutes’ walk from the school,” she says.
* A Girl’s War: A Childhood Lost In Britain’s WWII Evacuation, is published by Advantage. For more about the book, visit the website advantagefamily.com, or write to Special Markets, Advantage Media Group, PO Box 272, Charleston, South Carolina, 29402, America.
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