
Yesterday was our friend Joan’s 94th birthday, and since she’s British by birth Mark and I took her to the King's Head, our favorite British pub here in Santa Monica. Joan is one of the many children evacuated from St. Peter Port on the island of Guernsey in June of 1940 just days before the Germans invaded the island. Nothing was planned out, announcements were made in the newspaper and on the local radio that school-age children were being evacuated with their classes, and mothers with infants were told to arrange to leave as soon as possible. That and nothing more but scores of children were sent to the harbor. Just ten years old, Joan was sent with her classmates across the channel on ships sent by the British to Weymouth, then to Blantyre, in Scotland where she stayed, living with a volunteer family until her mother could join her. She isn’t sure how long she was there but her mother sent for Joan to join them in Stockport, in the county of ...