‘We were awake by then and suddenly the ack-ack (anti-aircraft) guns down on Hackney Marshes started firing. Mum got us both into one bed and lay over us herself, hoping we would not be in a direct hit. After a few seconds of quiet, we got coats and shoes on, grabbed blankets, and Dad shepherded us downstairs and out the door on our way to the reinforced concrete air-raid shelter underneath a school, just one block away.’

On 1 September, 1939, 175 children, teachers and helpers from Millfields Junior School in Clapton arrived in the Hertfortshire village of High Wych, as evacuees of the London Blitz. Ria Booth tells the story of her war years, from eight to thirteen years old, evoking both village life in a former, more rural England, and the terror and sacrifice of living in a London besieged by bombs.