Description

Dr John Welshman will have his book Churchill's Children: The Evacuee Experience in Wartime Britain published on 25 March.

Based on the stories of 13 children and adults, John Welshman's new book is a social history of the evacuation of schoolchildren in Britain during the Second World War. The narrative opens with the children waiting to leave, highlights their experiences while they were away, and closes with their return home. In between, it shows the varied nature of their experiences, whether they were ones of happiness or sadness, excitement or boredom, resentment or acceptance, love or abuse. How were relationships between children and parents affected by the long periods apart? What happened when brothers and sisters were separated? And how did the children feel when they went home? But Churchill's Children looks at the adults too - at how Billeting Officers and teachers got caught up in events, and at how civil servants and researchers became involved in the ensuing debates. The book explores the impact of evacuation, both on the children themselves, and on British society as a whole, and traces how much has changed in Britain in the 70 years since the start of the Second World War.