Doreen, by Barbara Noble

I discovered this absorbing short novel via the Backlisted Podcast. At the start of each session they share what they are currently reading, and Barbara Noble’s Doreen (1946) caught my attention immediately because it was about the evacuation of children out of London during the war.  It’s an historical event that has always interested me because my father and his little brother were evacuees, exploited as household help by servants in a big house.  But though he spoke very little about his experience, he did recount an act of kindness when someone used their petrol ration to give him a lift home when he’d sprained his ankle. So his experience was not entirely negative.

I can’t watch videos like this one without getting emotional. My father also talked about being lined up in a hall, and the humiliation of people choosing which children to take, using the same words…