During World War II around three and a half million British people were evacuated away from possible air raids in the big cities in one of the largest social upheavals Great Britain has ever seen. Many of the evacuees were children. Journeys from the cities were long and tiring and the evacuees did not know where they were going. They were often dropped off in groups and gathered in a local village hall or school to be 'chosen' by the prospective foster parents. One of those children was Ray Evans whose family was transported from Liverpool to the Welsh Town of Llanelli. In Before the Last All Clear , Evans tells a harrowing tale of leaving his mother and being forced to live with families who at best regarded him as a nuisance and at worst exploited him. Evans account takes a happy turn when he is billeted to a family who make him so welcome that he is reluctant to leave them at the end of the war. Written in a simple, direct style Before the Last All Clear depicts a world far removed from the glamour and sophistication of the twenty-first century.

Ray Evans was born in Liverpool in 1933. He was evacuated to Llanelli at the outbreak of World War II, where he remained until 1945. He joined the Royal Army Medical Corps after he left school and spent two years serving in Egypt. Evans ran a successful clothing business between 1964 and 1995 until he and his family moved to the USA. Evans now lives in Virginia, working as a realtor, with his wife of 48 years.