With the threat of devastation from the air which had become part of military planning in the 1930s, it was decided that, in the event of war, it would be necessary to evacuate children from all cities and industrial centres. Detailed planning for the evacuation of children from Edinburgh began in early 1939, although of 33,150 households which took part in a survey to assess the level of interest in evacuation, only 12,642 families noted that they wished to participate.

When Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939, the official evacuation scheme was launched, with 26,000 leaving Edinburgh, just over 40% of those entitled to be evacuated. The reception areas for Edinburgh children ranged from Inverness to the Borders, with two evacuation camps set up at Broomlee, near West Linton, and Middleton, near Gorebridge. Children were also sent to East Lothian which was considered a safe distance from the capital, even though the early actions of the war were to take place in the skies over East Lothian.

However, it was not the possible dangers from such attacks which saw children return to the city, but the clash of cultures as city children encountered an entirely different way of life in the country. They considered rural life to be backward and primitive without any modern comforts; whilst their hosts often considered the children to be dirty and ill-behaved layabouts. By March 1940, even though 100 children were being sent from Edinburgh every week, only 9,968 children remained outside the city. Clearly the pull of home was much stronger than any official orders!