Special Relations: Transatlantic Letters Linking Three English Evacuees and Their Families 1940 - 1945

In September 1940 the three eldest children of Grace and John Mathews travelled from their home in Southampton to Liverpool and embarked in the liner Antonia to make the hazardous passage across the Atlantic. They were among some 9,000 British children who were evacuated to the United States during the Second World War and their parents were not to see them again for five years. The letters from the children and their American foster parents were carefully preserved by John Mathews, who also kept copies of his own letters. Written by ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances, the letters give an intimate glimpse of domestic life on both sides of the Atlantic during the war years, as it was experienced at the time.