It is June 1941 in war-scarred Liverpool. Tim Oliver, back at home now the Blitz has ended, is finding life a struggle. He fails to win a place at the Collegiate, where his father had been a star pupil. Angry and ashamed, he considers himself 'a kind of war casualty', and gives up on school until, with the help of a mysterious 'friend of the family' he finally wins through.Tim's struggles are played out against the background of the last four years of the war.

A sequel to 'Tim Oliver, evacuee', 'Evacuees Return' is a fictionalised memoir.