TATIANA Lytvynenko’s eyes well up with tears as she talks of home. Home for Tatiana is Ukraine, where she has left behind her mother and grandmother, whose health has deteriorated with the start of the war.

Home now for Tatiana and her 15-year-old son Yurii is Tavistock, where they are living with a host family. She is one of 29 Ukrainian women who have come to settle in the town and surrounding villages along with their children, finding a welcome that has really touched Tatiana.

‘I did not know before that there were such big hearts in GB,’ she says. ‘Tavistock really is happy land.’ She talks of free sessions at the tennis club, joining litterpicking group Tidy Tavi, the walk she and a friend took to see Brentor Church, a free bus pass given by a local bus company for Ukrainian women, the pamper boxes from a local scheme, the kind words and her welcome from her host Julia Law, who set up the Facebook group Tavistock and Ukrainian Friends.

Even so, Tatiana, 37, tries not to think too hard about what has happened to her and so many of her friends. Her heart still weeps for home. At the start of February, this much-travelled woman had a normal life. She lived in an apartment in Ukrainian capital Kyiv with her son, had a career as head of human resources for a company employing 600 people, went to the cinema and out with friends. She flicks through her phone to show a picture of the sunset on February 21, another of her son on his birthday a month earlier and a party she organised at work on Valentine’s Day, complete with shiny decorations and a helium heart balloon. Then on February 24, everything changed. Russia invaded Ukraine. A bomb was dropped on a house within 600 metres of Tatiana’s apartment and she and her son took refuge in the metro along with hundreds of others. After that night, she did not sleep in her own bed again.

After nights sleeping underground she was offered accommodation in Kviv close to the Polish border. Then, when the war caught up with them there, Tatiana and her son took the offer to escape into Opole over the border in Poland. From here they applied for visas to come to Tavistock, where Tatiana already had a friend Katya, a Russian married to an Englishman, who put her in touch with her sponsor Julia. With several friends also linked with Tavistock host families through the Tavistock and Ukrainian Friends Facebook page, the group flew into Bristol Airport on April 26.

‘Tavistock is beautiful with beautiful people and we felt this love from the first moment we entered the airport. We have a broken heart, though, and it can’t be repaired because our families are still there, back in Ukraine. Many are crying every evening because some have husbands in the army and of course they have kids.

‘For me, my mum and grandmother are still in Ukraine and my grandmother is nearly 86. She faced the Second World War and this war has completely spoiled her retired life. She says she will remain in Ukraine. “She was born there and she will die there”.’

Tatiana’s mum and grandma live in Dnippo, a five or six hour journey from Kyiv. When her grandmother when she broke her hip recently, it hit home for Tatiana how far she was from home. Then there is the aching worry about menfolk,who are serving on the front line, putting their lives in danger each day. ‘For Ukraine the phrase “how are you?” in a text message has come to mean ‘are you still alive?’ she says. ‘A classmate of my son has lost her father in the war and my ex-husband is also in the area where there is fighting.

‘One of my friends lost her husband in the war. You don’t now what news you are going to getting tomorrow. It is not like someone is going on holiday or a business trip. You don’t know when they are coming back.’

In Tavistock, she tries to live day by day. Like the other Ukrainian women, for Tatiana, being here is about ensuring life goes on for their children. Her son is at Tavistock College, he has joined the boxing club, has been on a trip to Plymouth Argyle and is making friends.

‘My son was so stressed, now he is getting back to normal life, school home, boxing. He is becoming himself and getting happier, not stressed all the time.’

Tatiana is also a lifecoach and is using those skills to support other Ukrainians coming to the UK. She is passing on what she has learned through her own experience. ‘Before, I helped people reach their potential, now I just help them survive,’ she said. ‘We have lost the future. We live day by day.’

Tatiana knows she is a refugee. All the same she is not so comfortable with the word, even while she is so grateful for the support and kindness she has found here in Tavistock. ‘For us, it is not where we wanted to be. It feels like we had everything and then it disappeared. It comes in waves,’ she said. ‘Waves of sadness. You have a broken heart. Even as you are building a new life you are crying about back home. It is like your heart is blended. You need to cry. That is what I am saying to everyone, you need to cry, you need to express your emotions. ‘Before, we were dealing with life, now life is dealing with us. All this help we are getting from Tavistock is getting us to a stage where we can handle life again.’