On Friday, September 1, 1939, 1,340 unaccompanied children arrived at Wigton railway station. They were evacuees from Newcastle. The following day, a further 1,410 were expected.

A photograph of the station shows the access road crowded with people waiting to receive the evacuees.

The children were welcomed into the homes of local people. They were prepared to look after them for the duration of the war in an area of the country that should be secure from the bombing raids which were expected in London and other metropolitan centres.

The same picture was repeated throughout the county – in Kendal and Appleby, Whitehaven and Workington, Keswick and Carlisle. In Penrith “a cheery smiling crowd of boys poured from the train ... all carried rucksacks or kit bags and gas masks in their cardboard containers were conspicuous.”

In Whitehaven, one woman recalled that the evacuees were “tired by their long journey, hungry, some with reddened eyes and tear-streaked cheeks”.

In this way the war began for many. Even in the Lakes it was to cause a huge amount of social disruption. Men went to war. They left their families, with the mothers having to raise the children single-handedly.

Many women, especially the younger ones, found themselves working in the Women’s Land Army or doing voluntary work for organizations like the WVS.

It was a time when everyone was needed. The shipyard in Barrow employed 17,000 people, many of them men in reserved occupations, but many of them were women, who made arrangements for their children to be looked after while they took well-paid employment. Many were engaged in building the airfields at Silloth, Kirkbride, Hutton-in-the-Forest and elsewhere.

K shoes in Kendal were working flat-out to produce everything from RAF flying boots to kit bags. Shells were made in Workington, battle-dress in Whitehaven, parachutes in Hensingham and aircraft parts in Sedbergh. Short Brothers were building the Sunderland Flying Boat on the shores of Windermere.

In Carlisle, Carr’s were making special biscuits for the forces and Teasdale’s were supplying confectionery. Metal Box produced over 600m cans for war use.

Sundour Fabrics “converted its looms to the production of covers for aircraft engines and cockpits, dinghy packs, parachutes, camouflage and anti-splinter material, blankets, kit bags, bitumised black-out cloth and other special fabrics”.

The Lake District received many private evacuees, people with money who could afford to stay in hotels and private accommodation. There was a shortage of domestic servants. One woman from Ulverston commented that “the laziness of these people in big houses, makes me boil”. The Land Army girls were not allowed to do domestic duties and the farmers’ wives found themselves working harder than anyone.

The six years of the war were a time of social upheaval. The expected patterns of life were disrupted. Refugees from Czechoslovakia and from Poland, and PoWs from Italy came to live in the county and in the later years of the war, there were American airmen at the airfields.

Life continued despite the minor hardships of the blackout and limited food supplies and people enjoyed films and concerts and especially dances.

After the war the country and the county were changed and people found their way of life considerably different from the one they had known before the hostilities.

Patricia and Robert Malcolmson are Canadian social historians. Wartime Cumbria: 1939-1945: Aspects of Life and Work (CWAAS £17) is a very thorough and well-documented account of a troubled time.

It is an important contribution to the history of the county.

Review by STEVE MATTHEWS
Bookends, Carlisle and Keswick
www.books.cumbria.com