Summary

During the Second World War, British children were spared the humiliation and fear of enemy occupation.

During the Second World War, British children were spared the humiliation and fear of enemy occupation. None the less, they endured six years of increasing deprivation, uprootings, and long separations, and many experienced both physical and psychological suffering. They witnessed and endured intense air raids, both by conventional bombing and by the new terror weapons of V1s and V2s. Many were exposed to sights of injury, death and destruction, and at a very young age were forced to cope with the loss of friends and family at a time when counselling was unheard of. For nearly thirty years, Lyn Smith has been recording the experiences of those who were children during the war. Through the richly diverse voices and writings of over one hundred contributors, covering a wide geographical area that goes beyond the home front, Lyn Smith has written a powerful oral history of the war as seen from a child's perspective.