A poignantly written and graphically described story of the pleasure and pain endured as an evacuee during World War Two. Like so many of his young friends and relatives, John Wright was required to leave the love and care of his parents in Middlesbrough at a very young age to escape the attention of the Luftwaffe and to be evacuated into the hands of a crowded and unloving home in Haxby, a quaint village north of the great city of York. The book eloquently describes his voyage of childhood discovery in the beautiful countryside coupled with the cruel attentions of a foster mother whose motivation was not to lavish love and support to her unfortunate foster children, but to hurt and belittle them. It is a bittersweet story of innocent interludes and mean realities for an evacuee child set amidst the horrors and melancholy of that devastating conflict.