Child From Home: Memories of a North Country Evacuee

In 1939, John Wright, a four-year-old boy from a deprived but loving Middlesbrough home, was uprooted from his family and evacuated to a large house in North Yorkshire, requisitioned as a nursery school. His story is not unlike any other during the upheaval of wartime, but in this remarkably lucid and detailed set of recollections, a seventy-three-year-old man tells his story of love, loss and life with the delight and fear of a wartime child. His poignant memories of cruelty and hurt are set against a beautiful voyage of discovery as a young boy explores the Yorkshire countryside and comes of age in a unique environment, only to be struck by an unbearable tragedy. A bittersweet tale of innocence and stark realities, Child from Home explores why wartime means so much to our collective memory – and reveals the devastating effect we have on children as we try to protect them from conflict.