20 out of 10 This is a truly wonderful story about a wartime evacuee and a curmudgeonly carpenter Tom Oakley. The boy (William Beech) is billeted with Tom and it is immediately apparent that he has serious issues when he wets his bed on the first night. William is illiterate and frightened but somehow the two find solace in each others loneliness. It transpires that William has a talent as an artist and we see Tom's talent as a choirmaster in an amusing rendition of Jerusalem. William is befriended by Zacharias Wrench, a young Jewish lad also from London and along with both Tom and Zacharias, he finally learns to read and write and to feel a part of this small close knit community. Just as he is settling down, William is recalled back to London by his mother, and it is here we see why he is so screwed up. His mother is clearly mentally sick and when Tom doesn't hear from William, he travels to London to look for him. He finally finds him holding his dead baby sister where he has been tied up in a cellar. After a period in hospital, Tom realises he must kidnap him and take him home with him. The climax is a bitter-sweet ending when William is told he is to be adopted by Tom, while at the same time, learning his best friend Zacharias has been killed in an air raid in London. For me, one of the most moving scenes was when Tom was talking to a official from the Home Office.
I love 'im, an' for what it's worth, I think he loves me too'.
It just doesn't get better that that does it?
I love 'im, an' for what it's worth, I think he loves me too'.
It just doesn't get better that that does it?