Northallerton, a town divided by influx of evacuees

BOMBING: A family with their air raid shelter in Newcastle Picture: NEWCASTLE CITY LIBRARY

A former evacuee myself, in 1939 aged six I went from Gateshead to the village of Nunthorpe in the North Riding. I stood at Gateshead railway station in 1939 failing to appreciate why it was necessary to leave home or knowing where I was going.

I lived in the Nunthorpe billet for only a few months before returning home in January 1940, like so many other evacuees at the end of the so called “phony war”.

At home, our air-raid shelter had restricted access which made it difficult for my parents to enter – my mother had to wear protective headwear to safeguard herself from head injury. And on the nights when bombing took place on Tyneside it was either too cold or the shelter was too full of water draining from the surrounding earthworks, so a bed was made up below the dining room table. With so many disturbed nights and the absence of schooling I was evacuated a second time and secured a billet in Cumberland.

Northallerton

IN early September 1939, hundreds of children together with their teachers, helpers, and some parents, arrived in the town as part of the government’s evacuation scheme. Northallerton and its surrounds had been designated as reception areas by the Anderson Committee, set up in 1938 in response to anxieties about enemy bombing.

Northallerton Urban District Council believed that there was a prospect of the town’s population being increased by 20 per cent at a stroke – the arrival of such numbers was likely to put stress on the social fabric of the town.

The evacuation

THE evacuation of children from Gateshead took place on September 1 and 2, 1939, each child carrying spare clothing and gas masks. North Riding County Council reported that 12,000 evacuees were expected from Gateshead but only 7,500 were actually received. It was planned that 30 trains would be laid on to transport all Gateshead evacuees to the North Riding and South West Durham. At a meeting of the Northallerton UDC on September 7, Councillor A.E. Skelton reported that the town had received 639 evacuees from Gateshead on the previous Friday and Saturday, and would receive a further 364 evacuees on September 10 and 11.

These evacuees mainly came from the Bede Collegiate Boys School in Sunderland, where some forward planning had taken place, with pupils and prospective hosts being linked in advance. In the case of pupils from Gateshead, however, the arbitrary selection of children by hosts often threatened to separate siblings. One evacuee perceived that “the best dressed children were chosen first” with others left to the end of the selection process.

On arrival, the children were given a meal before going by bus to the new homes.

The reception and the billets

MANY had a warm welcome to Northallerton. One urban district councillor providing billets for Gateshead children said that: “I am trying to learn a new dialect under the tutelage of the two young men from Gateshead billeted upon me. I shall be able to speak Tyneside.”

However, some weeks later there was public criticism of evacuees by the chairman of Northallerton Rural District Council, relating to the frequent changing of billets. He said that: “The persons billeted are unreasonable and unthankful. We have done our best and we have found them really good homes and still they are not thankful. We have had enough of it.”

Some evacuees experienced unusual situations. One, from a leafy suburb of Gateshead wrote of “outside dry closet, twin ones, and the tin bath in front of the kitchen fire”. Another, in a billet in Market Row, Northallerton, wrote of “a tap on the wall opposite the front door for fresh water and the toilet at the bottom of the lane. As I remember it was a large old-fashioned wash house – bit frightening.”

A common complaint by the hosts was the perceived inadequacy of the allowances paid to them – in at least one instance, the host wrote to the parents of the evacuee asking for increased financial support. Hosts were paid 10s 6d a week for a single evacuee but where there was more than one the rate was 8s 6d. Dissatisfaction with the allowance resulted in one host in Northallerton denying electric light to a pupil revising for his school certificate. The young man concerned had to resort to torchlight under his bed clothes.

The billeting officers

WITHIN the reception areas, billeting officers were appointed. In the Northallerton area, initially, billeting officers were volunteers and most were local councillors. Their role was stressful one – the clerk to Stokesley RDC “had broken down under the strain”. The volunteer billeting officer for Romanby, a Northallerton RDC councillor, resigned in October 1939 because, as he later stated, he “became an enemy to all in the parish ... People stood on [his] doorstep day after day asking for relief from billeting.”

The main job of these officers was to provide a billet for each evacuee, but they also had to make regular visits to check on the welfare of evacuees and to ensure that the householder did not make fraudulent claims for those who returned home.

By the end of 1939, increasing opposition was emerging, and Councillor Norris, billeting officer for Northallerton UDC, raised objections to children being prevented from going home at weekends, saying that householders were being deprived of a “weekend of privacy”.

In January 1940 he referred to vandalism caused by the evacuees in Northallerton.

Councillor Norris wrote to The Northern Echo on January 17, 1940 to express his concerns. Was Norris aware that this letter would have been read by many Sunderland parents, since The Northern Echo was their principal local daily newspaper?

His letter claimed evacuation had failed, leaving parents of evacuees distressed and the home life of the billets “completely desecrated”.

He resigned as billeting officer for Northallerton on March 7, 1940.

In the wider community Councillor Norris probably had greater support among those disenchanted with the evacuation process, perhaps because fewer than the expected numbers of evacuees remained in the town.

The evacuees

AT the point of departure, a number of children were so badly shod that they were given extra sandshoes by the authorities, reflecting the extreme poverty of many evacuees, particularly from Gateshead. In certain parts of the town, many children went about in bare feet.

Evacuation potentially brought poverty home to their families. One social worker wrote: “I have seen an unemployed father in tears because of a son’s letter saying that, while he knew his father could not send the ten shillings demanded by the hostess for clothing, he would rather come home than endure the situation any longer.”

Concerns about health and the poor condition of evacuees were heightened by the increased incidence of infectious diseases. The Darlington and Stockton Times reported that two evacuees in Bedale had contracted diphtheria. Many children were described as being “verminous” and in Northallerton small-tooth combs were unobtainable due to demand. Cases of impetigo were common.

Not all evacuees had unhappy stories about their stay in Northallerton – some had relatively uneventful experiences, others had a rewarding time, and some did not want to return home. Each evacuee had a unique experience, and none was “typical”. Many were homesick, some bullied by local children, and they had frequent changes in billets. Two unhappy evacuees planned to escape from Northallerton by boarding a railway wagon at night.

Children were made aware of the dissatisfaction felt by the hosts about the allowances received. In at least one instance boys had to cycle from Sunderland to Northallerton and back in one day to retrieve their belongings, after being told they would not be accepted on return from the Easter holidays of 1940.

In Northallerton, as throughout the country, many evacuees returned home by the end of 1939 or early in 1940, during the period of the phony war.

1940

DURING the early part of 1940 the need for a second wave of evacuation was created with the German invasion of the Low Countries and France. There was opposition to further evacuees in Northallerton and the arguments put forward were that there was a lack of facilities for full-time education; a shortage of billets for nurses attached to the local hospital; and a reduction in available accommodation since the original survey was made. A number of 400 evacuees was finally agreed.

However the final stage of the first wave of evacuation, which began in September 1939, was the decision to recall the headmaster and staff of the Bede Collegiate School in September 1940.

• Harry Fairburn is a retired bank manager with a MA (Local History) from York University. He is a prize essayist for the Yorkshire Society. Recent work undertaken has been on women’s suffrage. He is a volunteer with the Ripon Museums.