Before the Last All Clear-A Book Review

Let me first make it clear that I know the author of this book personally. In fact, I am able to write this review only because Mr. Evans has allowed me to read the manuscript prior to the release date. I make no promise that I can be wholly unbiased, as I consider Ray to be a good friend. I can only hope to separate my opinion of this book from my respect and admiration for it’s author.

I knew many of these stories before reading the book, as I have many times chatted with Ray about his experiences as a child evacuee during the Second World War. Having also spent a large part of my childhood in Europe, listening to my grandmother and grandfather tell fascinating stories of life during and after the war, I was intrigued at the idea of reading this story the moment that Ray told me he had begun writing it.

The story told in “Before the Last All Clear” is intrinsically an emotional one, as the victims here are children, forced to evacuate their homes and go live with strangers to avoid the devastation of the Nazi bombing. However, the author never seems to fall prey to the temptation of manipulating the reader into feeling pity. To his credit, he never seems to ask the reader to feel anything at all. Perhaps he does this unintentionally, or perhaps because he knows that the story is powerful enough to stand on it’s own without embellishment. Whatever his intention, I found myself in tears while reading it. More than once, in fact.

In what I believe to be a tip of the cap to the author’s working-class Liverpool upbringing, the storytelling here is simple and straightforward. Descriptions are not so forced that the reader might risk losing faith in the author to tell the truth about what happened to him as an evacuee. The awful, cataclysmic bombing of his home city of Liverpool is seen through the eyes of a young, frightened child. This is not an “apocalyptic event”. It’s just “scary”.

Because then, as now, no truly reliable method existed to see inside the human heart, and because of the sheer size of the evacuation, some children were sent to live with people who were less than happy to have them as house guests. Some lived in filthy conditions. Some were underfed. Others were lucky enough to be placed in loving homes and treated as members of the family. All were far away from home.

While the fathers of their nation fought the Battle of Britain, refusing to surrender at every turn, many of their children fought battles of their own. They fought loneliness, hunger and fear. They were the unsung victims of this horrendous conflict, coping with the danger of unexploded bombs, the fear of Nazi parachutes found nearby, and the empty feeling of abandonment.

Ray speaks of these events today with typical British understatement. He remembers the details of his travails as if they had happened only months ago. In truth, he was an evacuee more than 60 years ago. He remembers almost without rancor the people who mistreated him, and with great affection those who were kind. He remembers saying goodbye to the people he loved, six years old and overwhelmed with emotion. And he remembers feeling wanted and accepted into a family.

Ray’s goal in writing this book was simply to tell his story. He makes no attempt to pass moral judgment on the horrors of war. This is not an indictment of the “evil that men do”. It is the story of a child, far from home, away from his family, surviving, even thriving. And the inherent message there is clear, isn’t it?

In the end, “Before the Last All Clear” is the simple story of a young boy placed in an impossibly complex situation. It moves quickly and smoothly. It is well written and very moving. But most importantly, it is true. It is horribly, wonderfully, true

Before the Last All Clear-A Book Review