When the children of Gowburgh – a soot-streaked industrial town known for its razor gangs and slums – are evacuated to the quiet Scottish Borders village of Langrigg at the outbreak of the Second World War, the contrast is stark. Langrigg, with its clipped hedges and clipped vowels, prides itself on order, cleanliness and calm. But as 800 children and their mothers arrive, tensions rise, and the village must reckon with the realities of war, class and community. In the upheaval that follows, unlikely bonds are forged, and a fractured community learns to meet hardship with resilience – and a grace it never knew it had. This reprint of Robin Jenkins’s classic includes an introduction from IWM, placing the novel in its historical context and shedding light on the wartime experience of ordinary families uprooted by conflict. Jenkins’s characters are not heroic, nor exceptional, but they endure. In the face of disruption and division, they find ways to come together, quietly embodying the resilience that defined a generation.
