Out of Harm's Way

In June 1940 Britain expected enemy invasion. Despite Churchill's determination to fight on the beaches, many parents made desperate efforts to send their families abroad to safety. Nearly half the country's children were on a waiting list for overseas evacuation and thousands of others had already left for America, Canada, Australia and other distant countries when, on 17 September 1940, the SS City of Benares was torpedoed mid-Atlantic. The great exodus ceased but those already in safety had to spend several years far away from everyone and everything they knew. In this revealing new book, Jessica Mann, herself a wartime evacuee, looks at the experiences of those who were sent away to a foreign land, often unaccompanied, and asks how they coped with being away, and also how they found life back in the UK on their return. Drawing on memories of many former evacuees, including Elizabeth Taylor and Shirley Williams, and using extensive original testimony, Jessica Mann builds up a moving portrait of a lost generation.