Rooms apparently full

 Renting rooms in the 1940s may remind you of our website page Evacuees; the large numbers of children who travelled with their schools from Camden and other London boroughs, and coastal Sussex towns. The motivation was the 1939 Pied Piper project and later plans to protect the population from the worst of enemy bombing.  Much has been recorded by surviving evacuated children now in their eighties and nineties.

Rather less has been recalled by countless adults of the time transferring from their home towns to follow employers when they moved to more strategic locations.  Their time has passed and it will be their children and grandchildren who might carry the story forward – as long as the accounts are known and remembered.

Not part of individual accounts, however, is a conflict between the needs of the child refugees and those of adults moving in to the city and district for employment.  The often recalled account is that of the Chief Billeting Officer for a district being a stern and sometimes belligerent individual who, with a child or two in tow, knocked on doors and "demanded" that the householder accept at least one of the youngsters – "we all have to do our bit, you know."  Occasionally there is reported to be a police officer nearby, while the billeting officer is reputed to be threatening to invoke the law, which did exist but was rarely used because of the potential conflict between householder and evacuee, whether child or adult.

Being looked after – part of a "borrowed" family.
COURTESY IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUM

To set some context for readers the issue facing St Albans' Billeting Officer, G C Cowan, was written up in an interview set up with a Herts Advertiser reporter (or perhaps the Editor) in August 1942 shortly before yet another crocodile of young incomers.  

In 1942 there were reported to have been 3,300 adults and children in accommodation in an appreciably smaller city than today.  Of this number were 1,300 children with their schools.  Although it appeared rooms remained available, the billeting staff founded it easier to gain the agreement of tenants of 6-roomed council owned homes than the occupiers of 6-roomed privately owned homes.  It is easy to suggest private home owners were more obstructive and less willing to accommodate strangers.  But there was another dynamic at work, especially when new groups of children were expected, as was to be the case in time for the start of the Autumn term 1942.

We should appreciate that no evacuee, adult or child, would be expected to be admitted to a householder's home without payment of expenses.  The fee per child was 12 shillings and sixpence (62.5p) per week; a householder could claim 35 shillings (£1.75) for an adult worker occupying the same room space.  When family income was modest, perhaps with a husband on military service, why would a housewife not hold out for an industry worker's fee per week.

Nurseries opened for extended hours to look after the children of mothers working in
nearby factories.

It would be a well made point that there is pressure for housewives to undertake shift work in munitions and assembly tasks, which would mitigate against accepting children.  Child care is no modern phenomenon; during the war day nurseries and after school children's clubs were common, but the more lucrative night shifts were not accessible if there were children to look after at home.  Such responsibilities did not come into play with adult lodgers, who may themselves be required to work night hours.

Women from St Albans on a shift at a munitions factory in Fleetville.
COURTESY ST ALBANS MUSEUMS

The article was at pains to explain – and reinforce – a number of social and family benefits from taking in evacuee children: building more long-term relationships perhaps leading towards adoption, and children learning to call the adults mum and dad, or aunt and uncle; managing children with vivid imaginations and the ability to relate stories, where others might have called the child a "naughty little liar".  The helpfulness of billeting staff was reinforced in the case of periods when the household adult needed temporary relief of her responsibility, for hospitalisation, for example.  Of course, it is not possible for us to confirm the authenticity of these or other alleged statements.

The suggested myths around billeting officers and their approaches to householders may occasionally display a brusque side to their personalities, but rather like theatrical landladies and ARP wardens, they were volunteers attempting to do their best in challenging circumstances.  As were householders of course.  Most young people and adults will have come through the experiences without too much scarring, and many with positive, even warm, memories. 

The period was unique in this country's modern history.