Friday afternoon September 1st 1939 saw the first  train load of  Evacuees from Manchester arrive in Bacup  with a second train arriving in the evening.

 All in all 2,400 children had been expected to arrive with more children due to arrive the following day Saturday 2nd September.

 

The first train load of children and teachers arrived in Bacup station at around 4.10, each child labelled with a card and carrying an array of bags, boxes, suitcases.

Three double Decker buses as well as other coaches were waiting to take the children to their de-transportation points which were situated at schools and Sunday schools  throughout Bacup and Stacksteads these included ;

 

Sharneyford, Britannia, Central, St Johns,  Western, and Acre Mill with a  further centre at the British Legion Club.

 

Six months prior to the evacuees arrival a billeting survey had been taken in order to ascertain who would be able to offer  accommodation to the children some mothers and teachers  who had accompanied them.

 

Billeting officers had been given powers under the defence regulations to exercise compulsory billeting were needed householders had no choice in the case of compulsory billeting and had to accept the evacuees children in to their homes. They could however appeal against the decision and so in each town including Bacup and Stacksteads appeal boards chosen by the Mayor were set up for such cases.

 

Children who were ready to go to their billets were given a carrier bag which contained;

 

A tin of Bully Beef, a tin of Sweet Milk, a tine of Unsweetened Milk, 1lb of Biscuits and 2 bars of Plain Chocolate.

 

Before the month of September was over it is estimated that over a quarter of the population had changed their addresses.

 

This included 825,00 schoolchildren, 624,00 Mothers with children under school age,13,00 Expectant Mothers, 7,000 Blind people and 113,00 Teachers.

 

Bacup and Rawtenstall received between 2,000 and 3000 evacuees from Salford and Manchester during the later months of 1939.

 

 

If you were a Evacuated to Bacup and would like to tell your story please email me.

 

Official Brochures at the time gave out guidelines to people who took evacuees and this contained amongst other things  the following information.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It wasn't always just children who had been evacuated either as this article from the February 1941 edition of the Bacup Times shows.

Miss Mary Ann Carter, an 83 year old evacuee, who since her home in London was destroyed by a bomb last October had lived with Mr and Mrs George Baron at High Meadows. Bacup, died on Monday at the Moorland Infirmary, Rawtenstall. She had enjoyed good health until about a fortnight ago, when she had a seizure and she died peacefully in her sleep. She was a remarkable old lady with a retentative memory. Her grandparents kept the toll bar on the London road outside Peterborough, and from her grandmother she learned many things of the days before trains when the coach used to go through from York to London for a fare of £5. One quaint feature she remembered her grandmother telling was of recruiting in the days before Waterloo. The raw recruits of those days had never learned the meaning of right and left, and so to get it into their heads the officers had to tie a piece of hay round one leg and a piece of straw round the other and give orders. " Hay" " Straw" while persons like Miss Carters grandmother watched them drill over the hedgerows. She could also remember the remarkable  foundation of Trinity Baptist Church, Crawford Place, London. Where she attended, through a refugee from Holland buying a piece of cheese wrapped in a portion of the Gospel of St John. his reading of which led to his conversion. He founded the church and one of his sons became Baron Herschell, Chancellor of the Exchequer of England. Miss Carter lived a very consistent life and the day before she died she was heard to say " Yes that's all right, he is always faithful I have proved that many a time over". Her body was laid to rest in Bacup cemetery on Thursday, Mr William Baron and Mr and Mrs George Baron, attending.