Carrie's War by Nina Bawden

As Carrie Willow and her children walk along the railway line where she and her younger brother Nick spent time in their youth, memories come flooding back reminding her of a lifetime gone by. With time spent in the Welsh valley during the 2^nd World War, Carrie and Nick had to adjust to the quiet village which was a world away from bustling London, but a change which would live with them forever.

Thirty years before, Carrie and Nick among other children are led onto the train taking them to a new life. With their father away at war and having said goodbye to their mother, they’re alone in the sense of being the only people each other know. Sent to live with Mr Evans, a strict and domineering grocer and his weak and quiet sister Auntie Lou, Carrie and Nick quickly become used to the running of the house and learn that Mr Evans isn’t someone to mess with.

As they start to explore their surroundings they discover Druids Bottom, a grove surrounded by fields and a pond housing a small cottage where Mr Evans’s other sister Mrs Gotobed lives with her housekeeper Hepzibah and Mr Johnny, a simple young chap who speaks his own language. Alfred Sandwich, a fellow evacuee also lives there giving Carrie and Nick an excuse to spend a lot of time at the cottage having lunch, spending time in the fields and listening to Hepzibah’s stories, although Carrie feels some of them are too young for her.

As time goes by, Carrie and Nick become used to living in the country, but can’t help feel homesick during times such as Christmas and birthdays, although their new found friends do all they can to make them feel at home. And when their mother writes to them asking them to join her in Glasgow, they find themselves sad to say goodbye to a village which for a short time had become home.

This is a book which I’ve had on my shelf since I was young, but have never had the urge to read it. Knowing it was set during World War II, being a young girl I had no interest in learning about the war or reading about children being sent away from their parents, but now that I’m older I find myself interested in what happened years ago, so was keen to finally give the story a break from sitting on the shelf and open the pages which had patiently waited years to be read.

I wasn’t completely sure what angle on the war this book would take, but I found Carrie’s War a great insight into how children must have felt during the war and how they adjusted to a different life despite missing their parents.