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This article addresses wide questions about the different attitudes towards childhood in Britain and France in the 20th century. Focusing initially on the so-called Colonies de Vacances in France, the article shows that urban working-class French parents had, as early as the 1900s, got used to the idea of sending their children off for lengthy periods of time in the summer months to special camps in the French countryside. The development of the Colonies is reviewed and the consequent attitudes towards childhood compared to that in Britain, where wartime evacuation led to vocal and insistent concerns over the separation of children and their families. No such concerns were voiced in France, and the article attempts to unpick what such differences tell us about attitudes towards and experiences of childhood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]