evacuees to Kintyre

[Tom B]

mum used to tell us about evacuees that came at the start of the war, and continued to come as friends & visitors for many years afterwards, including cycling down from glasgow every year, I think.

would be interested to hear any local stories, as the significance of what happened seems so much more now.

how many came, from where, how long did they stay for, who were they?

[petewick]

My mum was reared in Saddell and the Mortons at the "big hoose" had evacuees staying with them.
Mum was born about a year before the war started and the conflict was indigenous to people of her age, they did'nt
know it any other way.
One of her earliest memories is of playing on the beach at Saddell and one of the evacuees running towards them from the big house shouting that the war was over.

[Tom B]

One of her earliest memories is of playing on the beach at Saddell and one of the evacuees running towards them from the big house shouting that the war was over.

so they stayed the whole war? - I thought many headed back after days/weeks, after they realised there wasn't about to be a complete blitz of all our cities?

[petewick]

Must have done Tom, maybe some of them lost their parents in the
bombings and stayed on in the country.

[jamiemcivor]

The Courier published the week after the war broke out mentioned the arrival of evacuees from Glasgow... and a few weeks later reported that many of them had gone home, as indeed happened in many places.

You can check out the old Couriers at Aqualibrium - I used to love doing that when I was a kid and even when I worked for the Courier and the old binders were still kept in the back office.

[chuckiebay]

I know there were evacuees to Carradale. Any yarns? In another part of Scotland I know of two who met as evacuees from Glasgow, married and lived happily ever after(as far as I know).