Gillian Mawson makes history come alive in her book Guernsey Evacuees. All the research, all the detail is there, but she also gives us a real taste of the lived experience of the evacuees. This is no dry bones academic book but one that makes the reader feel like they are living through the terror of sudden evacuation, the struggle to survive in an alien country and the long awaited return home.
From the first page, when Valerie Pales describes the German planes overhead as she and her mother are picking potatoes to Jason Pickering's words on the last page "Take this sports bag, and imagine that all you can take is what you can carry in this. Imagine that is all you have..." I was totally engaged. The children's letters, the teachers' diaries, job references and excerpts from the Channel Islands Society Newsletters all added up to an absolutely compelling story.
This is also the story of the many people who opened their homes and hearts to the evacuees. I was particularly moved to learn about John W. Fletcher, an ordinary Lancashire man, who took the evacuees to his heart. He raised funds to make sure that hundreds of evacuees had Christmas presents and was fondly known as 'Uncle Fletcher' by the children.
Gillian Mawson has achieved something amazing in this book. She has respectfully and sensitively given recognition to 17,000 forgotten evacuees. In the process, she has also validated their experience as displaced people in mainland England and upon their return home.
I couldn't put this book down when it first arrived in the post and I look forward to reading it more slowly, and savouring it, over Xmas. If you love living history, the stories of peoples' lives, you will love Guernsey Evacuees.
From the first page, when Valerie Pales describes the German planes overhead as she and her mother are picking potatoes to Jason Pickering's words on the last page "Take this sports bag, and imagine that all you can take is what you can carry in this. Imagine that is all you have..." I was totally engaged. The children's letters, the teachers' diaries, job references and excerpts from the Channel Islands Society Newsletters all added up to an absolutely compelling story.
This is also the story of the many people who opened their homes and hearts to the evacuees. I was particularly moved to learn about John W. Fletcher, an ordinary Lancashire man, who took the evacuees to his heart. He raised funds to make sure that hundreds of evacuees had Christmas presents and was fondly known as 'Uncle Fletcher' by the children.
Gillian Mawson has achieved something amazing in this book. She has respectfully and sensitively given recognition to 17,000 forgotten evacuees. In the process, she has also validated their experience as displaced people in mainland England and upon their return home.
I couldn't put this book down when it first arrived in the post and I look forward to reading it more slowly, and savouring it, over Xmas. If you love living history, the stories of peoples' lives, you will love Guernsey Evacuees.
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