Hello and thank you for downloading witness from the BBC World Service.

I'm Simon Watts and today we're going back nearly 80 years to the height of the Spanish Civil War

when thousands of children were evacuated from the Basque country to safety in Britain.

Behind these happy pictures of the Spanish refugee children arriving at Southampton

aboard the Lina Harbana lies the grim tragedy of nearly a year of civil war. Still echoing in their ears is the devastating roar of the

day of nearly a year of civil war. Still echoing in their ears is the devastating roar of guns,

the crash of their homes and churches falling about them,

the screams of a people facing death.

One of those children arriving in Britain in May 1937 was Emmino Martinez.

A few days earlier, he'd said goodbye to his family at the port of Bilbao. My father took us to the dock side.

The poor man, he was terribly, terribly upset

and just walked away rapidly.

Eminio, then age seven, boarded a converted cruise ship, the Habana.

We were sleeping on the floor as we left, we encountered a storm and with the rolling of the ship everyone was sick and crying that they wanted the captain to turn the ship round to go back home,

that they wanted to go back to their families. It was horrific.

The evacuation was a desperate measure by the Basque government.

The Basque supported the Spanish Republic in Madrid,

and their region faced an all-out assault from General Franco's fascist forces.

Aeroplanes would come over the hillsides on the way to Bilbao to bomb.

The war was in the air all the time. The hunger, I remember, the North of Spain was cut off,

food was extremely difficult to come by. The bread was awful, awful bread.

The British government didn't want to help the Basks officially

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