大象传媒

'This poem was submitted to the People's War site by Rick Allden of the CSV 大象传媒 Coventry and Warwickshire Action Desk on behalf of Tony Walker and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions'.

The Looks

The looks on the faces said it all.

The-man-from-the-war (in uniform),
the man who had come to stay with us for a 鈥榮hort while鈥�,
the man who said he was my dad 鈥︹�︹�︹�︹�︹�︹�︹��.
the man who had kissed my Mum on the doorstep,
- sat down for tea.

He looked at the plate in the middle of the table on the best, freshly ironed, cloth
and - just popped the whole ration of cheese into his mouth and smiled at us.

Then he saw our faces

He said, 鈥� What! What?鈥�
He didn't understand. Where had he been living?
Even I knew, at five years old, that you only got two ounces of cheese a week and you had to hoard it, make it last, eek it out: like the sugar.
This man who said he was my Dad, he just ate ours, in one go - just like that!

Somebody would have to tell him: this man from the war.
I was too small and he was too big.

1 - He had been with the Royal Artillery in the Orkney Islands, where cheese was 鈥榦ff-ration鈥� and plentiful.

This poem was donated to the People鈥檚 War website by Tony Walker, of the Leam Writers. If you would like to find out more about Leam Writers call 0845 900 5 300.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.