Nina Bawden
To Safety By Sea
Out of Harm's Way: The Wartime Evacuation of Children From Britain
By Jessica Mann
Headline 342pp £20 order from our bookshop
The mass evacuation of children from major British cities to safer parts of the country was one of the most imaginative plans conceived by the government in the Second World War. In the last few years, the evacuation scheme has been heavily criticised for the traumatic effect it may have had on some young children who were torn from their homes and families to live with strangers, but these criticisms appear, very curiously, to ignore the possible alternative. The trauma of being killed by a German bomb would have been rather more final than life with even the most unsympathetic of foster parents.
I was evacuated with my school in August 1939, first to Suffolk, and then, when the Germans occupied what our headmistress called ‘the low countries’, and the invasion of this country seemed imminent, to a mining valley in South Wales. The decision to extend the scheme by sending children to
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
'It is the ... sketches of the local and the overlooked that lend this book its density and drive, and emphasise Britain’s mostly low-key riches – if only you can be bothered to buy an anorak and seek.'
Jonathan Meades on the beauty of brutalism.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/castles-of-concrete
'Cruickshank’s history reveals an extraordinary eclecticism of architectural styles and buildings, from Dutch Revivalism to Arts and Crafts experimentation, from Georgian terraces to Victorian mansion blocks.'
William Boyd on the architecture of Chelsea.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/where-george-eliot-meets-mick-jagger
'The eight years he has spent in solitary confinement have had a devastating impact on his mental health ... human rights organisations believe his detention is punishment for his critical views.'
@lucyjpop on the Egyptian activist and poet Ahmed Douma.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/ahmed-douma