28 May 2017

WW2 British Child Evacuees to Canada

Those who didn't get to my talk at OGS Ottawa Branch on Saturday may be interested to view the National Film Board (Canada) video shown at the end of the presentation.
It's Second World War propaganda, everything wasn't as rosy in Canada as portrayed, but allowing for that tells the story from the perspective of 1940. You will likely recognize the narrator.

View it at https://www.nfb.ca/film/children_from_overseas/
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1 comment:

  1. Anonymous28 May, 2017 12:16

    Did you notice at the end that the kids were skiing down the hill overlooking Dow's Lake? I recognized the stone walls at the top of the hill.....
    In 2005 my late husband and I were visiting Hawkinge in Kent, a former RAF fighter base during WWII which would have been right in the thick of the Battle of Britain. There was a museum to commemorate the fighter base, and we were touring its various buildings. It was very hot that day, and having only limited interest in shrapnel, I went outside to wait in the shade of a tree and have a smoke. One of the volunteers joined me under the tree, a very nice man whose name I never caught. "From Canada?" he said. Oh, yes. "I was evacuated to Canada during the war with my mother and sister," he told me. I asked where they had settled. "Oh, some small place I am sure you have never heard of ..." I urged him to tell me anyway. It was Carleton Place, Ontario. I shrieked with laughter, and told him how close it was to where we lived. We both laughed over that.

    After we returned home, I went to one of my favourite used bookstores in Carleton Place, and looked for books about the village. I found three of them. They had lots of pictures. Anyway, not knowing the nice fellow's name, I mailed them off to the "Charming Handsome Volunteer with a Magnificent Beard who spent time in Canada during the war, c/o the Hawkinge Museum. I received a delightful letter from him a few weeks later, thanking me for the books, and telling me that one of the books about Carleton Place had a photo of the home owned by a local nob where he and his Mom and sister had been billeted, of which he had lots of good memories. He also said he was still dining out on the description of him as the "charming handsome volunteer with the magnificent beard." It was lovely to make him so happy. Cheers, BT

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