Out of Harm's Way
Published on 8. May 2014
352 pages
978-1-4722-2074-5 (ISBN)
Description
In June 1940 Britain expected enemy invasion. Despite Churchill's determination to fight on the beaches, many parents made desperate efforts to send their children abroad to safety. Thousands left for America, Canada, Australia and other distant countries.
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 including their dangerous journeys across U-boat-ridden oceans, and asks how they coped with being away, and also how they found life back in the UK on their return. Drawing on extensive original research and memories of many former evacuees, including Elizabeth Taylor and Shirley Williams, Jessica Mann builds up a moving portrait of a lost generation.
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 including their dangerous journeys across U-boat-ridden oceans, and asks how they coped with being away, and also how they found life back in the UK on their return. Drawing on extensive original research and memories of many former evacuees, including Elizabeth Taylor and Shirley Williams, Jessica Mann builds up a moving portrait of a lost generation.
Reviews / Votes
OUT OF HARM'S WAY is a passionate book, full of anguish as well as indignation, and often very moving - John Preston, Sunday TelegraphOut of Harm's Way is a splendid piece of social history, detailed in a human-interest way, rich with anecdotes (Mann has been clever at not just recording personal stories, but marshalling them), full of documentation and underpinning; and it is sometimes very moving. - Scotsman
This is a fascinating account, not only of the children and of their journeys, but of the moral climate of the period. It is a balanced, finely nuanced, comprehensively researched book about a forgotten aspect of the civilian experience of the war. Neither the evacuees nor the reader could ask for a better chronicler than Mann - Cressida Connolly, Daily Telegraph
A moving and remarkable story - Western Mail Service
A voyage of discovery... Mann has done her homework. The book is jammed with accounts of evacuees' experiences - Peter Cross, Sunday Express
With such a trove of material to draw upon, she's written a rich and detailed history... The accounts Mann has collected are endlessly fascinating... Mann's book makes for a read that is illuminating and sobering, riveting and sad - Herald
A fascinating book... Jessica Mann has done an excellent job in drawing together accounts by dozens of evacuees and weaving them into an absorbing narrative with plenty of contemporary questions... OUT OF HARM'S WAY is a splendid piece of social history, detailed in a human-interest way, rich with anecdotes, full of documentation and underpinning; and it is sometimes very moving... Mann's witness deserves a distinguished place in 20th-century history - Anthony Thwaite, Evening Standard
A splendid piece of social history, detailed in a human-interest way, rich with anecdotes (Mann has been clever at not just recording personal stories, but marshalling them), full of documentation and underpinning; and it is sometimes very moving - Scotland on Sunday
More details
Edition
Digital original
Language
English
Place of publication
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Headline Publishing Group
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Edition type
Digital original
File size
0,76 MB
ISBN-13
978-1-4722-2074-5 (9781472220745)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Jessica Mann
Out of Harm's Way
Book
03/2006
Headline Book Publishing
€24.00
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Person
Jessica Mann is a crime novelist and journalist. In 1940, at the age of two, she was evacuated, first to Canada and later to America, returning home three years later. She studied archaeology at Cambridge and law at the University of Leicester. She lives in Cornwall with her husband, the archaeologist Professor Charles Thomas.
