This is the theme that is clearly yet sensitively portrayed throughout the book . We meet a shy, sensitive youngster enjoying all that life has to offer her when at the age of eight everything changes. Holidaying with her family on the Isle of Wight and sitting in rows on the beach alongside other holidaymakers, she hears the voice of the Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain announcing that the country had declared war on Nazi Germany. Over the following six years with its disruptions and fears of the unknown it is no wonder that emerging in 1945 was a confused, withdrawn, disgruntled yet seemingly independent teenager.