World War II

The 1914-18 had been supposed to be “the war to end all wars”. Only twenty years later, the world was at war again.

 

The longest journey

 “By the direction of the London County Council the children of the Foundation School attended at the school on 1st and 2nd September to be evacuated to an unknown destination, and on Saturday 2nd September 234 children were evacuated in charge of the Headmaster and teaching staff to Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, though as previously stated they were not aware of their destination when they started”.

 

So began the longest-lasting school journey of all. By the time the Second World War was declared, in great contrast to the situation in 1914, the government had made detailed plans to evacuate children, and mothers with babies, out of London.

 

Parents were asked to send their school-age children away in the care of their teachers, taking only one small bag with a chance of clothes, night and washing things and one toy. Neither parent nor child was to know where the group would be sent, where they would stay or when or if they would meet again.

 

Most parents complied, and the Cass school arrived in Aylesbury with almost all its pupils and teaching staff but no where to stay or to hold classes.

 

But very soon all the children had found “billets” in local homes, and the school began to share the premises of Queen’s Park School, Aylesbury. The children of both schools had three and a half hours’ teaching each day.