Out of Harm’s Way: The Wartime Evacuation of Children from Britain

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 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.