'Sheila had such a remarkable way of bringing her characters and her stories to life and we are all very grateful for the lovely legacy she left behind through her novels.' Rosie Goodwin

One last cough from the overheated engine of the Morris 8 and the bulging doors appeared to burst at the seams, with children tumbling eagerly out and dispersing in all directions - rushing past the shabby old weather boarded cottage into the tangled orchard and, with joyous whoops, discovering the gnarled plum trees groaning under the weight of huge, glistening purple-red Victorias.

At the outbreak of World War II seven-year-old Sheila and her family left Surrey to take refuge in Suffolk. For Sheila country life was strange at first, but roaming the fields and picking wildflowers was what childhood dreams were made of. When the bombing died down, the family moved back to Surrey, but Sheila would later return to the countryside when she, her husband John and their children arrived at Crabapple Cottage, their new home in Kent. Over the next few years, they had many adventures as they adapted to the seasonal rhythms of country life.

Sheila Newberry spent her whole life writing but it was not until she was in her 80s that she became one of the country's best-loved saga authors with books such as Bicycles and Blackberries and The Winter Baby. Evacuees and Crabapple Trees is a wonderful snapshot of her life, from her time as an evacuee to falling in love and raising her children. Throughout all of this Sheila was writing stories, which are loved by readers to this day.

Evacuees and Crabapple Trees contains photos of Sheila throughout her life and also has a specially commissioned foreword written by bestselling saga author, Rosie Goodwin.

Sheila Newberry was born in Suffolk and spent a lot of time there both before and during the war. She wrote her first 'book' before she was ten - all sixty pages of it - in purple ink. Her family was certainly her inspiration and she was published for most of her adult life. She spent forty years living in Kent with her husband John on a smallholding. She had nine children, twenty-two grandchildren and twelve great-grandchildren. Sheila retired back to Suffolk where she lived until she passed away in 2020.