THE STICKER in the front window of this bus says “Government Evacuation Scheme”, and this group of bus drivers and policemen were awaiting the arrival of Keighley’s first evacuees.
The date was September 1, 1939 – two days before Britain’s entry into the Second World War – when Keighley was expecting 1,100 schoolchildren from Bradford, although barely half that number materialised.
They came in four trains and walked in procession to the LMS goods yard, whence a fleet of buses – the one shown here was the number 14 – took them to 10 reception centres in Keighley, Oakworth, Haworth and Oxenhope schools.
The following day, another four trains of mothers and children below school age brought Keighley’s total Bradford evacuees up to 1306.
A substantial number were allocated to Riddlesden, where the Church of England School had to adopt a double shift system of lessons.
However, the early ’ phoney war’ period encouraged a steady flow back on to Bradford before more serious kinds of evacuees began arriving from the summer of 1940.
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