Blown Away - Seeds on the Winds of War

Recollections of a bygone era and the spirit of a community during exceptional times.

""Few statements are bigger than war. Ted's understatement of innocence speaks a timeless truth that both charms and counsels us." Oscar Sparrow."

In 1939 as Britain faced a fight for survival, civilian populations became the frontline in a new horror of industrialised war.

A total of 3.5 million people were evacuated from British cities during World War Two. Among them an assortment of scallywags who exchanged the streets of Dagenham for the lanes of Shapwick in Somerset.

In this memoir an indvidual voice adds its power of abiding hope to the volume of human history.

On the 1st September 1939, at the age of ten, Ted Baverstock and his classmates at Dawson Junior School became part of a mass evacuation of London's children to the safety of the countryside. The hitherto secret government operation code-named "Pied-Piper" had begun.

"School assembly was held in the playground that morning.....we were then shepherded in double file through the streets that we knew well, past our homes where mothers waved to us from their front doors........none of us knew the significance of the journey we were about to undertake or where we were bound. We felt as though we were on an outing with the school for a few days."

This is Ted's memoir, a record in words and photos of a period of history from the perspective of a young boy. The book details his recollections of the shock of being transplanted from an inner city to a rural farming community, the joy of discovery and the freedom and innocence of youth in a time gone by. It is a testimony to the resilience of children and families to cope in what would be unimaginable circumstances for 21st century Britons.

A must-read for anyone interested in true accounts of life as an evacuee in wartime Britain. An ideal gift those wanting to know more about the social history of wartime Britain, historians, children studying WW2 and of course, the folk who were there and lived through it.

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