1968. Gollancz. Introduced by Editor. Contributions by A Sillitoe & R Fainlight with their signatures, Jonathan Miller, Bryn Griffiths, B S Johnson, Michael Aspell, etc & a poem by N Nicholson. A very good copy in like dust jacket.

Inside flap:
"Four million children were evacueated in Britain at some time or another during the second world war. All of them must, to varying degrees have been marked by their experiences that were, at times, both unpleasant and most disturbing. The evacuees consists of thirty three accounts by a random smaple of those children. Some have become well known, others are unknown to the genereal publics; but the way evacuation affected them all is evident from what they write.

This book is not history, though Mr. Johnson in his introduction places evacueation in its historical context- the facts and figures are themselves appaling. The accounts in the book are personal and subjective. It is a truism that anyone can write well about his childhood; when that childhood includes evacuation, the quality of writing from people who do not primarily consider themselves writers can be very high indeed, as more than a few pieces in this book confirm.

Not all the contributions are in the form of reminiscences. There are extracts from novels and poems and a letter written at the age of fifteen by a boy to his parents who had threatened to evacuate him and his sister to australia. Not everyone was evacuated within Britain; some tell of what it was like to be sent to Australia or Canada or the U.S.A."