Caught in the throes of landmark historic events, many of the children remember one mundane detail: it was the first time they had seen a black and white cow.

It was a tiny culture shock among many for the 5,000 youngsters evacuated by a flotilla of boats from their sleepy idyll in the Channel Islands, many to be billeted in the north of England.

"They had never seen a train before, so some were quite scared," says Gill Mawson, a researcher at the Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine at Manchester University.

"They couldn’t understand why all the buildings were dirty. They couldn’t understand what people were saying. People would say: ‘Put wood in th’ ’ole’ and they’d go: ‘What?’" A total of 2,000 children saw out the Second World War billeted with well-meaning strangers in Stockport, 700 in Wigan, 500 in Bury, 200 in Oldham and 240 in Rochdale, with others dotted around Cheshire and Lancashire.

When, two years ago, Gill Mawson became intrigued by a 1940 newspaper cutting showing shell-shocked Guernsey children arriving in their new home, she appealed for them to tell their stories, decades on. She was overwhelmed with responses.

In June 1940, the people of Guernsey could hear the booming artillery on the French coast.

Teachers and education officials met on June 18, decided on an evacuation of the children, and within two days, boats full of youngsters were leaving for Weymouth. To avoid crowds at the quayside – a possible target for German planes – parents had to say their goodbyes at the school gate, the children marching down to the port in crocodile formation.

"The schoolchildren were all given a letter and a list to take home to their mums, and the mums had to decide whether to let their children go or take a chance and keep them with them," says Mawson. "There are stories of people packing their stuff, taking them to school, changing their minds and coming back again three times. Every family was traumatised."

The evacuations went on for seven days, with half the children leaving Guernsey. But on June 28, the Germans bombed the harbour. No more boats could leave, and, under occupation, no mail could go to and from Guernsey for months.

"There was nothing until March 1941 when the Red Cross said they could get letters to Guernsey through Europe," says Mawson. "But not everybody could afford it. It was a shilling and you only got 25 words, and you waited eight months for a reply."

Of the many evacuees Mawson has traced, nine out of ten remember their time here fondly. "I’ve looked at press reports of the time and it looks as if they were treated as celebrities, because their mums and dads were trapped on Nazi-occupied soil," says Mawson. "They were sent money and clothes and presents."

The children left behind on Guernsey saw an influx of German troops and even Hitler Youth. Islanders were told to obey the regulations imposed by the occupying force, or see St Peter Port bombed.

While children in Stockport were getting used to northern slang, some classmates back in Guernsey were having German lessons. Fuel shortages meant the people of Guernsey resorted to bicycles.

The local authority, with the Nazis’ co-operation, managed to establish trade links with France, but by the end of the war, food shortages affected both islanders and their occupiers. Some islanders recall living on cabbage soup, getting a little protein from eating a juicy slug. Food and medical supplies occasionally came through Red Cross parcels.

Though the islanders were not generally ill-treated by the disciplined German soldiers, thousands of slave workers brought from German-occupied territories to the Channel Islands to work on fortifications were treated very badly.

Back in England, the Guernsey schools were often kept together even during evacuation, one school, for instance, taking over Cheadle Hulme Parish Hall for five years.

"It was always understood they would all go back together, unless they’d left school, got a job and decided to stay," says Mawson. "Some went back to Guernsey and found that because the island had been wrecked by the Germans, they could not get a job or find a house, so they returned here. Others went back and got stuck in with their families.

"Out of the people I’ve interviewed, I would say 25 per cent stayed here. Of the 75 per cent who went back, 25 per cent had some kind of trouble, either because they had Lancashire accents which were mocked a bit, or they just couldn’t reintegrate with their families. One of them said: ‘When I was in Lancashire, I could get on my bike and cycle for hours. When I went back to Guernsey and got on my bicycle, within ten minutes I was at the sea. It felt really strange’."

A Channel Island Evacuees service will be held at St Mary’s Church, Market Place, Stockport tomorrow at 11am. Evacuees will gather at Stockport railway station approach on Sunday, June 27 at 1.40pm for the unveiling of a blue plaque to mark the arrival of Channel Islanders in Stockport in June 1940.

• Do you remember Greater Manchester’s Guernsey evacuees? Write to Memories, Manchester Evening News, 1 Scott Place, Manchester, M3 3RN.

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