No Time to Wave Goodbye

Images of Guernica burning in their minds, recalling the Zeppelin and Gotha raids of World War One, the authorities in Britain in 1938 plotted the most massive transhumance of humanity ever conceived. To their credit, within 72 hours of Neville Chamberlain's announcement that the UK was at war with Germany, some three and a half million vulnerable non-combatants - mainly children under 13 years of age - were evacuated from the cities of Britain to "safe" rural locations. They came from Tyneside, from Teeside, from Merseyside, and of course from Thameside. From teeming slums, from elegant Georgian townhouses, from leafy suburbs, from upper or middle-class families, or from underemployed or unemployed working class homes. Ben Wicks chronicles this unprecedented event. Following the planning process, from as early as 1924, he narrates the steps, the fears, the analyses that led inexorably to the decision to shred whole families to pieces, to commit to the charity of strangers the care of Britain's future, Britains youth. The history of human social development is the history of the perpetual conflict between an agrarian lifestyle, and the life of city dwellers. The evacuation of more than 3,500,000 city folks to rural communities in the Great Britain of 1939 is but one more chapter in this history. But it is a poignant chapter. Three million displaced persons is a statistic; one such is a tragedy. Mr Wicks delves beneath the statistics to expose the tragedies, but also the triumphs. From interview to interview with the displaced children, we slowly piece together a picture of a Britain slowly shrugging off the class consciousness of the `20s, gradually emerging from the prudery of Victoriana, and preparing itself to meet and overcome the ultimate challenge of Nazi Germany. If I had to make any criticism of this book it would be its brevity. Yes, the author had to pick and choose between thousands of personal accounts. Yes, some editing was essential. But the story of over two million children ripped from the bosom of their families demands to be told. Mr Wicks has exposed the tip of the iceberg. The other ninety percent remains, still, hidden.