Fanning the Flames

'We are at war,' declared Jacqueline Makkink's father to her elder brother in 1939. 'This means, Donald, that I shall be joining the army and you will be the man of the house.' 'What about me?' Jacqueline asked. 'Oh, you will be taken care of. You will be sent somewhere safe' came the reply. At the age of six Jacqueline was evacuated from Sheffield to live with violent foster-parents in slum-like conditions in the Peak District. Here she felt anything but safe. In this autobiographical account she describes how she endured eighteen months of being homesick and thoroughly miserable, until at last she ran away and with the help of a kind Italian family was able to be reunited with her mother.