Cadbury advertised their Bourn-vita drink as a nutritious product that would help children sleep and avoid war worries. Child psychologists and the general public were very concerned about the effects of ‘war worries’ on children. They feared that witnessing death and destruction during the bombing raids of the Blitz, and being separated from home and family, particularly from their mothers, would have long term harmful consequences.

Psychologists like Anna Freud, Cyril Burt and John Bowlby conducted surveys of evacuated children and evacuation played a major part in the development of Bowlby’s famous theory of maternal attachment and separation.