"Imagine being sent away from your home and family, at very short notice, bundled into a crowded train with no idea of its destination and surrounded by strangers. This was the fate of thousands of children when the Second World War broke out and Britain embarked on the evacuation of a large section of the population from the big cities to rural areas in order to avoid the air raids. Families were frequently split up and some children did not see their parents again until the war was over. As if this were not traumatic enough many evacuees found themselves billeted with people who neither cared about them nor wanted them."