Maggie’s chest tightened. That wasn’t fair! She’d had to beg Dad to send little Vi away. He’d refused to let her go when war broke out, when her whole school was sent to Wales.

‘No! Families stick together,’ he’d said. Which was a joke because they never did anything together as a family, except eat their meals around the little kitchen table, in uneasy silence.

So, Vi had been kept at home, even though all her pals had been evacuated and there was no school to speak of. She’d been the only child down in the shelters and people had stared at them, no doubt thinking they were wrong for keeping a child in London when everyone knew sending them away was for the best.

It was only after those poor kiddies were killed in the shelter the other night, that he’d agreed, finally, that it was too dangerous for Violet to stay in London.

Maggie had taken Vi to the station but she wasn’t allowed on the platform. No tears, no fuss, that was the order.

She’d watched through the railings with the other women – mothers with brave smiles and sad eyes. The other evacuees, five little boys all at least a foot shorter and five or six years younger than Vi, were driving the WVS woman in charge to distraction, bashing each other with their gas mask boxes and running amok on the platform.

‘It goes against the grain,’ one of the women said, crying into her hankie once they’d waved the train off. Maggie knew what she meant. She was a sister not a mother, but it still tore her apart to let Vi go.

Her sister had been gone for three days and ten and a half hours. Maggie was on tenterhooks; she wouldn’t relax until the postcard arrived, telling them where Vi had been sent.

Mutti had gone, Violet had gone. There was no way Dad would let her leave too.

She suddenly felt a surge of indignation. Why shouldn’t she go? She was eighteen years old, an adult. Other girls her age were serving in the WRENS and the WAAF, putting their lives in danger for King and Country, doing their bit.

Maybe this move, with the bank, to the countryside was her big chance? Once, after Dad had ranted and raved and slammed the door on his way out to the pub, Mutti had said, ‘You and Violet will get away from this, one day.’

Maggie thought she’d meant when they got married and had homes of their own but perhaps neither of them had to wait that long. Perhaps some good could come out of this bloomin’ war, after all.

But what about Mutti? she’d thought When would she get away? Maggie could never shake the feeling that Mutti would have left Dad a long time ago, if she’d had anywhere to go.