Evacuation Tours

By bringing to life the people from World War II that pupils may have studied in class, we can fire the imagination of your students to develop an understanding that no text book could ever equal.  Key Stage 2 pupils can travel on a realistic journey back in time, unrivalled by conventional teaching methods, giving them a true to life experience, and one on which to reminisce with people from older generations.  We realise the value of combining teaching and entertaining children to maximise their learning experience.

Our Evacuation Tours allows the children to understand what life was like in the 1940s they will hear stories about living in Plymouth during this time from one of  the Pearce sisters. When they step on board Beryl our bus they will  enjoy a sing song 1940s style with hits like" Run rabbit Run " .Once they have experienced the tour  we will have  a quiz and the chance to look and touch WWII artefacts. 

Evacuation tours are £3.75 per child( Teachers go Free) this includes collecting and returning all children back to your school .

School Tours available Monday to Thursday  (Term times only). 

When you book a tour we will send out our Evacuation Pack which includes  sample of ID cards, Food Ration Books , Clothing  Book, work sheets and a copy of  Map identifying where bombs fell  in Plymouth .
 

Plymouth Discovery Tours has full Public Liability Insurance;  We have an operators licence ,which demonstrates we have achieved quality and safety standards set by the government  traffic commission . Our drivers has a full PCV license and will take part in programme of continuous professional training . Our bus undergoes regular inspection as part of our operators licence. this information will tick all the right boxes on your risk assessment.

To assist with the children's learning  we have created a family for then to get to know

Jane

My name is Jane I am the youngest of three sisters I’m only 20, home on leave from my duties in Cornwall, every time I come home I see yet another part of the city destroyed, it’s disappearing bit by bit.

 First the church where we were all Christened and my parents were married was bombed and burnt to the ground, even the local shops, and I could not believe my eyes when I saw the main shopping centre it is now been completely flattened, its hard to imagine if life will ever be normal again.  I was conscripted about six months ago; I am now a land army girl helping with the war effort, by working on the land. It’s been really hard leaving home, for the first time, I miss my family, and especially Mums Sunday roasts. Mr. and Mrs. Brown who own the farm are very kind but it isn’t home, I’ve only ever slept away from home once before, when we went on holiday to Newquay. The work has been hard to get used to, so different from working in the corner sweet shop at home.

 We, that is the other two land army girls here and me have learnt to drive a tractor, plough fields, feed animals, it’s hard and so tiring we are up at the crack of dawn and keep working till its dark, Mr Brown say’s we are as good as any man he’s ever hired before.   The farm isn’t that far into Cornwall only about twenty miles or so from Plymouth, sometimes I wish I had been sent a hundred miles away.

When Plymouth is being bombed the night sky’s lights up in an orange and red glow it’s a vast sea of flames hundreds of feet in the air it looks like a huge firework display. I stand glued to the spot I feel the tears trickling down my face, here I am watching from the safety of Cornwall, I feel so guilty, so helpless, not there to help protect my family. Wave after wave of bombers fly over Plymouth releasing their weapons of destruction on to the unsuspecting city below, I close my eyes and imagine the devastation, the lives lost, I feel sick to the stomach. What if they haven’t made it to the shelter in time, what if the shelter takes a direct hit, what if, what if, and can you imagine how I feel. I mutter a pray over and over again in my head please keep them safe.

Maud

Hello let me introduce myself, my name is Maud, I am married with a 5 year old beautiful daughter called Daisy, my husband Fred is away fighting for King and country on the front lines. We both miss him so much, we treasure every letter Fred writes us, when he can of course. I don’t just look after my daughter I am also an air raid warden, don’t laugh women have had to take on men’s jobs, because all the young men have been called up.

 Anyway, when the air raid siren starts its stomach curdling wail, warning us that the planes are on there way, my first job is to make sure little Daisy is tucked up safely in the Anderson shelter with Liz, thank goodness it’s only in the back garden. I then put on my overalls wellington boots and steel helmet (I know not very glamorous) carrying a stirrup pump in one hand and a bucket of sand in the other. I close my eyes and take a big gulp to help me gain a little courage hold my head up high and I walk the streets of the city, helping to keep it safe. I am looking for small bombs called “incendiary”, these bombs are dropped so they can start fires, and they can do so much damage. 

  I must tell you what happened to me last week, it was the worst night of my life, I was on duty when a V2 rocket dropped not far from my street, and it completely devastated a neighbour’s house. I felt quite ill knowing that those poor people were trapped maybe buried alive under the rubble. I dug and dug franticly until my fingers bled, my heart was beating so loud I thought it was going to explode, someone’s arm went up to call for silence, we held our breath not daring to move a muscle, their it was again tap, tap, tapping. Thank god they all made it, no fatalities that night.

                          Liz

Nice to meet you, I am the eldest of the Pearce sisters and sadly I was widowed in February 1942, when HMS Exeter the ship my husband was serving on went down, he and twenty six other brave men lost their lives that day. Sometimes I am so lonely and get so angry that this stupid war seems to be going on for ever. At least I’ve had my children to stop me from losing my sanity; they bring some normality to my life. Sadly though I don’t think for much longer I have to make one of the hardest decisions of my life, should I evacuate my children David and Sarah to the safety of the countryside, to be brought up by some strangers? I fought against them being evacuated in 1941, I am still not sure if that was the right decision to this day, they’ve seen so many horrors in their short lives, friends being killed, the streets they live in being flattened.

 Plymouth has become such a dangerous place not only because of the Blitz, its also because our children now have rubble and bomb craters as playgrounds they look for souvenirs like shrapnel on the way to school. I heard little Johnny Jones who lives the next street over found an unexploded Incendiary bomb only yesterday, lucky it didn’t go off while he was playing with it, it could have killed him, what would you do in my shoes?