Far from the East End: The moving story of an evacuee’s survival and search for home

The touching Blitz evacuee’s memoir about the search to belong

From the dirty streets of the East End to the Welsh countryside, will little evacuee Iris ever find somewhere to belong?

Born in 1938 under threat of looming war, Iris spent her early years playing in the rubble of bombed buildings in Dagenham by day and cowering in a dusty shelter at night. But the hardships of poverty and the dreaded Blitz could not match the pain she felt at her parents’ indifference. She prayed that just once her mother would hold her when the bombs rained down. But loneliness only intensified when she was evacuated.

Finding the nurturing home she had always dreamt of in her adopted Welsh parents, she wonders what, when she returns to London after the war, will be waiting for her. Will she ever be able to love her philandering father, depressive mother and an angry, bullying brother? Will her family even survive? Or will she have to look farther afield for the affection she so longs for?