SEPTEMBER 1, 1939, there were no tears or long faces, just singing and chatting about the days incidents as an evacuation train, bound for Skipton, left Forster Square Station. With more than 200 youngsters aboard, they recalled with glee how they managed to board the “Safety Express.”
However, some were not so lucky, as they were not in the evacuation area and could not go with their school mates. Barely had the train left the Bradford suburbs before the youngsters were digging their teeth into apples and oranges, quietly reading their comic papers, or already sampling their iron rations.
As Britain went to war many children in West Yorkshire were evacuated to the country for their own safety. But it was not too long before the district was turned upside down by World War Two.
Pictured above, Sheila and Joan Dalton from Swain House school, well prepared at Forster Square Station and (right) youngsters in a carriage at Bradford’s Exchange Station.
Mothers had no need to worry about their children who had been evacuated. Pictures soon circulated showing how the youngsters had settled down quite happily in their new surroundings.
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