Poignant parallel with the wartime children sent away from loved ones

Her Majesty drew on her first Windsor broadcast which she gave to evacuees

The Queen’s broadcast was rich in echoes of the Second World War, not least her reference to her Children’s Hour appearance in 1940 – you can still hear her charming, high-pitched speech on Youtube. It was her first broadcast, at the age of 14, alongside her sister, Princess Margaret. As she said last night, she “spoke from here at Windsor to children who had been evacuated from their homes and sent away for their own safety”.

Truth be told, evacuation was not an entirely successful move. In the face of extreme worry about the Blitz, some predicted four million civilian casualties in London alone – a wild overestimate. The man in charge of the evacuation, Sir John Anderson, the “Home Front prime minister”, who his name to the Anderson Shelter, was thought by some to be a cold fish with little understanding of the terrible wrench for children leaving their parents, and vice versa.

Indeed, historians have begun to question whether, in retrospect, evacuation did more harm than good – given everything from the pain of separation to the dangers of living with strangers.

Some children from the inner-cities had their lives immeasurably improved in the freedom of the countryside.

Others had a dreadful time. “There were absolutely no security checks,” says Joshua Levine, author of The Secret History of the Blitz. “Some were placed with exploitative people who took advantage of them.”

Levine compares the story of two evacuees. One, Roy Bartlett, was evacuated from Ealing, west London, to Buckinghamshire. Once there, he

‘I spoke from here to children who had been evacuated and sent away for their own safety’

was bundled into a car and touted round the village. “Don’t he look pale?’ said one woman. “What funny accents,” said another. Eventually, a nice young couple said, “Would you like to come and stay with us?” The couple, Bill and Connie, proved to be exceptionally kind and Roy remained close friends with them until Connie died in 2006, aged 94.

But the results of evacuation could also be tragic. In April 1940, the chairman of a bench of Sussex magistrates was almost in tears as he sentenced Edith and Ruth Sills, a mother and daughter from Hailsham, who had beaten a four-year-old evacuee with a stick 64 times after he stole biscuits from a larder.

The magistrate said “His whole life might be affected by this brutal chastisement” and he urged the boy’s mother in London “to give him the tenderest care to help him forget”.