MUNNS, Donald Walter.

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Londonanidoj. First and only edition. This posthumous novella about London evacuees, written in Esperanto, is based on the author's personal experience. Donald Munns (1929-1945) was just 15 when he died. Born in Woolwich, Munns was the son of Frank Munns, a schoolteacher imprisoned during the First World War as a conscientious objector, who later became mayor of Woolwich. The National Register for 1939 shows that the family were living in Wellington, Somerset. In 1943-4 Donald contributed a list of woodcraft terms in Esperanto to The Torch, the magazine of the Woodcraft Folk, which had close ties to the co-operative, labour, and pacifist movements. He dedicates his book to "the boys of London, of whom the author is one". The anonymous editor explains in the foreword that Munns had studied Esperanto at home for 15 months and that Londonanidoj is "a testament not only to his competence, but also to the comparative ease and expressiveness of Esperanto". "Fear that German bombing would cause civilian deaths prompted the government to evacuate children, mothers with infants and the infirm from British towns and cities during the Second World War. Evacuation took place in several waves. The first came on 1 September 1939 - the day Germany invaded Poland and two days before the British declaration of war. Over the course of three days 1.5 million evacuees were sent to rural locations considered to be safe" (Imperial War Museum).

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