大象传媒

In 1940 I was thirteen, and, I regret to say, enjoying the Blitz. Shelter hopping during an air raid warning on the way to school, and watching the fighter planes high in a cloudless sky was a macho thing for small boys to do.

Night time air raids were spent sleeping under the stairs of our house in Golders Green with my sister and my six year old cousin who kept us awake by singing silly songs. One I remember went as follows:
Whistle while you work!
Hitler is a twerp,
Goering鈥檚 barmy,
So鈥檚 his army,
Whistle while you work!
It was sung of course to the tune of the Dwarf鈥檚 marching song in the then recent film of 鈥淪now White鈥�.

One morning after a particularly heavy bombing I went out to inspect the damage, and discovered that my neighbourhood and much patronised sweet shop had been almost totally destroyed. All that was left was the end wall shared with the adjoining property. On the shelves of that wall, and miraculously untouched, were all the large glass jars of sweets from which in those days, our two penny orders were scooped into small brown paper bags.

The sun was shining, and a unique, dazzling and multicoloured display was on view to the whole street. Even to this day I have a strong visual memory of those exposed sweet jars.

At the time of course my first reaction was not aesthetic, but criminal. Was any looting possible? Alas there was a policeman guarding the site, presumably against other similarly minded small boys.

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