Wartime in the Dales

Diane Allen

WHEN two young girls are evacuated from Liverpool to the heart of the Yorkshire Dales in wartime, they soon start hatching plans to escape their rural billets and head back to the families they miss... and the city they love.

The rural beauty and wild charm of the Dales once again form the alluring backdrop to a compelling tale of family bonds, love, hope and resilience from popular storyteller Diane Allen (pictured below) who was born in Leeds but raised at her family’s farm deep in the Yorkshire Dales.

Using the stunning countryside surrounding her home near the historic market town of Settle as her inspiration, Allen’s gritty novels are proof that she has her finger firmly on the pulse of northern saga writing, and the hardy Yorkshire folk who have for centuries made their home amongst the hills and dales.

In Wartime in the Dales, we are swept back to September of 1939 to find the government cranking up the country for another war and plans already being laid for Operation Pied Piper which will see children from large, industrial cities evacuated to the countryside, far away from any potential bombing.

In Liverpool, where the large docks will almost undoubtedly be an enemy target, lifelong friends Maggie Shaunessy and Lizzie Taylor, both aged eleven, are heartbroken to be evacuated from their inner city homes to rural Yorkshire. Lizzie is sent to live with a vicar in the village of Gargrave while home-bird Maggie finds herself delivered by chauffeur to Hawith Hall, the home of Lady and Lord Bradley.

The moorlands and fields of Yorkshire are a whole new world for Maggie and Lizzie, and the hall and the vicarage are very different to the homes they have left behind. Soon both girls are very homesick although, fortunately for Maggie, she finds friendship in the form of Alice, a young servant at the hall who takes Maggie under her wing.

But Liverpool isn’t the only place seeing life transformed because change is coming to the Dales too, leaving the girls harbouring desperate plans to run away... all the way back to Liverpool.

Allen, an observant and insightful writer, brings us a fascinating cast of authentic characters in an enthralling tale packed with emotion, drama and the harsh realities and struggles of youngsters whisked far from home and family during the Second World War. Filled with Allen’s warm-hearted compassion and gritty evocation of life in wartime, this poignant tale shines a light on the bonds of true friendship, the comfort gained from shared adversity, and the enduring power of love and family to transform even the darkest of days.
(Pan, paperback, £8.99)