Freud_Burlingham_1943_War_and_Children_k_text

for them was no shock of any kind. It tookthem only a very few hours to feel acquaintedwith the rooms of the new house. They arrivedat lunch time and at tea, their second meal inthe new surroundings, no child had the slightestdifficulty in finding his place at the table.The toddlers were delighted to have "realbeds" again. No child seemed tomiss or questionthe absence of a shelter.A few weeks later, a fond memory of theshelter in Wedderburn Road seemed to wakeup in them. An empty bookcase in the nurserywas suddenly declared to be a doll's shelterwith all the individual dolls sleeping peacefullyin tiers above each other. The workerswere asked by the children to crochet netsto safeguard the dolls against falling out oftheir beds and in this way to make the resemblanceto former shelter life complete.It took the children less than one day togetaccustomed to outdoor life. They took possessionof the playgrounds immediately and alreadyon the day after arrival showed theirfamiliarity with the lawns by standing ontheir heads on them and by using the spacefor all sorts of acrobatic stunts.Little more than a week after their arrivalin the country the children were disturbed atnight by a solitary stick of bombs whichdropped several miles distant. Since the noise136