Wild Strawberries ~ "an entertaining read, and a useful addition to the literature on the evacuees"
This gives the book a different tone - the author was evacuated to a house with less modern facilities than his own, and to an overwhelmed school in an older building. He was also evacuated to a house in a hamlet near Yoxall in Staffordshire, quite close to my own home village. After a comparatively short period here, the author was diagnosed with scabies, and moved to a nearby children's hospital set up for evacuees. His memoirs thus cover a wider range of experiences than is often the case.
The book is well written and involving. One gets the impression that the author had a largely positive experience as an evacuee (with one notable exception). For most of the time there is less of a sense of isolation than in many accounts, partly because the author kept up a regular written correspondence with his mother and partly because he was able to arrange a visit home, not something mentioned in the other evacuee memoirs I've read! This is an entertaining read, and a useful addition to the literature on the evacuees.
Review by Dr John Rickard, HistoryOfWar.org, a site for information on all aspect of military history.
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