Just before the outbreak of the Second World War the government decided to begin moving people from Britain's cities to the designated reception areas as a precaution for the expected bombing raids soon to come. Some people were reluctant to move and only 47 per cent of the schoolchildren, and about one third of the mothers went to the designated areas. This included 827,000 schoolchildren, 524,000 mothers and children under school age, 13,000 expectant mothers, 103,000 teachers and 7,000 handicapped people. When the expected bombing of cities did not take place in 1939, it is estimated that a million of the evacuees had returned home by January 1940.
