The Pommerys turned nearly all the guest rooms into dormitories and hired local girls to help take care of the children. The government urged all parents to send their children out of the cities, on relocation programs to keep them safe from the bombing. Many children had already been killed. Families in the countryside all over England were volunteering to take them in and house them. Few people took as many as the Pommerys, but they had an enormous home. They had twenty-four children staying with them, and four village girls to help them. Prudence pitched in whenever she wasn’t at her nursing classes. The operation ran surprisingly smoothly. Lord and Lady Pommery called them their adopted grandchildren and faced the situation with kindness and good humor. Four and a half years later, in the spring of 1944, nearly half the children had lost their parents, either in combat or during the bombing of London. They would be placed in adoptive homes after the war. But in the meantime, they remained with the Pommerys in Yorkshire. In some cases, brothers and sisters had been placed with them, but in many cases, siblings had been separated. The youngest child they had there was nearly six now, and the oldest had just turned eighteen and was about to enlist in the army. Running the house and supervising the children was a full-time job for Lady Pommery. The children attended the village school, and the Pommerys had acquired their own school bus. Lord and Lady Pommery took turns driving the bus to school, and thoroughly enjoyed it, almost as much as Prudence had enjoyed her nursing classes. She had graduated in February 1942, and was a volunteer nurse at the local hospital for a year after she graduated. Then she decided to enlist in the RAF Nursing Corps and went to London.