Last Evacuee, The - Reflections upon a Changing Window: Reflections upon a Changing Window

The Second World War experiences of Lilian White who was evacuated from London to live with a privileged middle class family in the Pembrokeshire coastal town of Tenby, far removed from her lowly upbringing.

About the Author :
Stephen White ('Stref') is an Edinburgh-based illustrator, writer, and comic book artist. For a number of years he worked for DC Thomson on The Dandy, The Beano The Broons and Oor Wullie. His first graphic novel, MILK+ was published in 2010 and was followed by Raising Amy in 2011. He also illustrated The Tattoo Fox written by Alasdair Hutton.

Review :
The subtitle, Reflections upon a changing window, is well chosen as this memoir is constructed not from one persons memory but augmented, pieced together and altered by reflections from several sources an extensive labour of love. The body of the book appears as Lilian Whites autobiography, but the foreword and epilogue by her son, Stephen, reveal that he has filled out much of the detail, dialogue and physical description while retaining his mothers tone of voice. This makes it difficult to judge how much of the emotional reaction conveyed in the text is Lilians, but the reader can only assume that the personality and tone that emerge so strongly are hers, consistently maintained by Stephen. The basic story is one no doubt replicated widely. Born in 1929 into a very poor and rather unstable London family, with an alcoholic father who was mostly absent, ten-year-old Lilian and her three-year-old sister Doris were evacuated on the outbreak of war to a small farm in Lincolnshire. Lilian did not like seeing the pigs killed and after a few months she returned to her mother, leaving Doris at the farm. After a short while, the war in London escalated and Lilian was sent to Tenby, where she remained with a caring, middle-class Welsh family, the Morgans, until the end of the war. At the end of 1945 she chose to return to London, where she found a job, a husband and spent the rest of her life. The most substantial and detailed sequence concerns Lilians life with the Morgans, where she received a good education and was encouraged to study, given lessons in singing, at which she excelled, and was introduced to the excitements, dangers and beauty of a seaside adolescence. The book pays repeated tribute to Lilians mother as a loving parent, and her parting with her children was clearly for their safety (their London house was indeed destroyed in the Blitz). Lilians rather semi-detached attitude to her various siblings and her foster families is often puzzling though. She felt guilty about abandoning Doris, but never seems to have written to her at the farm or enquired about her. She acknowledges the excellent care and friendship she had with the Morgans, but left without notice and never saw them again. Stephens epilogue reveals that he subsequently made considerable and successful efforts to bring family members back in touch and that he values that contact, but one is left with the feeling that Lilians disjointed early life left her with a tendency to lose touch with all but those who stayed closest to her. The tone of the book is clearly set by Lilian, and she excels at capturing the childs viewpoint, seeing detail but half-understanding what is going on and trying to explain it. To this Stephen has added the excellent and generally delightful epilogue. This epilogue reveals more of the siblings later lives, which incorporated typical aspects of post-war experience: the American war-bride, the pre-fab home, and a marriage to a Polish airman who stayed in England. In its honesty and individuality, the book questions the stereotype of the close, working-class, London family. Absentee fathers and alienated siblings were not just features of the late twentieth century, though they were probably exacerbated by the wars disruption of normality. The later chapters make clear how widespread and contemporary is a hunger for roots, and how modern facilities for research and communication can heal old divisions. Caroline Clark It is possible to use this review for promotional purposes, but the following acknowledgment should be included: A review from www.gwales.com, with the permission of the Welsh Books Council. Gellir defnyddio'r adolygiad hwn at bwrpas hybu, ond gofynnir i chi gynnwys y gydnabyddiaeth ganlynol: Adolygiad oddi ar www.gwales.com, trwy ganiatd Cyngor Llyfrau Cymru. -- Welsh Books Council