大象传媒

The setting is in Leicester where myself, Dennis Neal and My mother and father were huddled round a fire listening to the news on the wireless on the night of 6 February 1944. My mother suddenly screamed out and burst into tears and said that my brother Roy, who was serving in Burma, was dead.

There was one clock in the room and it stopped at precisely the same time.

There was no way we could console my mother for several days. Normally a very strong and not very demonstrative woman, she was subject to bouts of weeping on a regular basis.

One day about six weeks later there was a knock on the door and a telegram boy handed my mother the fateful brown envelope which stated quite clearly that my brother Roy had been killed on active service on 6 February 1944.

How my mother knew so precisely, I am unable to explain and the fact that the clock expired at precisely the same time was surely nothing but coincidence.

I am sure she never ever got over his death and it almost certainly paid some contribution to her early demise.

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