A loud cheer went up – Hurrah! Lots of the other children seemed to be delighted about leaving London and seemed to think that being evacuated was like going on some sort of holiday. Their carriage, like all the others, was jammed with children of every shape, size and age. A girl about Sophie’s age pushed in beside them with her younger brother and sister, shoving their luggage in the rack above and on the floor below them. ‘Stop that crying, Lily! Do you hear me?’ she ordered. Big dirty tears ran down the little girl’s face and she looked so miserable Sophie felt pity for her. The older girl turned and glared at Sophie, daring her to interfere. Instead, Sophie stared out the window, watching the blur of back gardens and houses that sped by. She could see kitchen after kitchen, privies, lean-to’s, rows of houses that clung haphazardly together, some bombed out and now deserted. Glimpses of streets with children playing, and row upon row of allotments, bursting with every kind of vegetable – no piece of ground could be wasted with the war on – and men and women digging and working.
