When I was fourteen, the war came. My brother and I were evacuated in a
school train, labelled like parcels with our names and addresses hung
on cards round our necks, to a mining valley in South Wales. We lived
there for three years with a number of foster parents, some nice, some
nasty, but chiefly, like Mr. Evans in "Carrie's War", a mixture of
both. Since billets were scarce, we had to learn to keep on the right
side of our hosts, which meant watching them rather more closely and
warily than most children need to watch adults. We spent the school
holidays with our mother on a Shropshire farm, where we were
unreservedly, almost lyrically happy. This beautiful county later
became the setting for "The White Horse Gang" (1978).
