Dance of the Blackfoot Scot — Alan Lloyd

The humerous recollections of a wartime childhood. It is a joyful romp through a turbulent period of English history that offered excitement and freedom to a generation of children. The story briefly recalls the pre-war period of uncertainty in England while Europe emerged from economic depression to deal with anti-Jewish sentiment and the increasing prospect of conflict in Europe while Hitler prepared to launch Europe into WW2. The narrator was almost six years old when war was declared and his childhood changed as Britain once again faced Germany on the battlefields of Europe. In 1941 he was evacuated to a country vicarage. His guardians, a bumbling cleric, and his deviate housekeeper hadn't the slightest idea of how to care for an eight year old London boy and mayhem ensued. He became a cowhand, joined the church choir and unfrocked the deviant choirmaster. The vicar threw up his arms in surrender and the sleepy village school became a battleground. Our hero was packed off back to London. Shortly after he returned his father, a War Reserve Officer in the Royal Navy was posted 'missing,' his mother had a nervous breakdown and he was sent off to further adventures as the 'guest of a dysfunctional Irish family in the run down slums of Liverpool. Life was great.