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'This story was submitted to the People's War site by Rick Allden of the CSV ´óÏó´«Ã½ 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'.

Chalk and Cheese

Well, they must have been: the two elderly spinsters doing their bit for the war effort. Both good Christians though: both kind enough.

But I have this feeling that Katie had a wistful soft spot for me - probably from the first moment she saw me as a tired little evacuee with my mum, my great aunt and the sisters.

They must have been chalk and cheese, those two: two 'well off' elderly spinster sisters living together during those war years. Why can I be so sure? Katie has been in my mind often since and Gertie is just a name I have heard my mother, my great aunt or my grandmother say. I don't remember meeting them for the first time - that would have been when I was a three-year-old evacuee, toddler with golden hair, blue eyes and gentle ways for a boy. We all arrived with the others at Weston-super- Mare carrying all our possessions — losing some in the panic: kids 'on holiday', grownups looking tired and worried, no doubt.

The Dykes had The Mansion on Highbury Hill - and the converted organ loft, the tiny three-story dolls-house without a letterbox, that became our home ‘till nineteen forty six.

They must have been at the Town Hall late that night when we were the leftovers, the very last ones, clinging together, refusing to be split up — the five of us: Margaret, the baby, invisible inside my mother’s coat.

You’d think that I’d have had enough of women about me when I managed to escape into little alley through the houses but maybe she kept watch for me when she was gardening the little terraced patch that overhung the gritty path on the sunny side. There was a sunny side for me: I was little and the war didn’t impinge on my life — I was carefree. Katie had bright, twinklie blue eyes, braided grey hair — a grey moustache and hair on her chin - but it didn’t matter. What did she say, what did she do? I have no recollection at all, but she must have been a first companion in the big world outside. The one with snails, nasturtiums, steps to sit on in the sun, wallflowers to smell, gravel to throw, sycamore keys to wonder at and sparrows to watch.

In those bad times, I must have been quite a find, too. Maybe I was tucked away in a special corner of her mind, for life, as she has been in mine.

Tony Walker

This story was donated to the People’s 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.

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