大象传媒

My dear friend Margaret and I had a magical childhood, despite the war. This was thanks to our mothers, who never gave us any idea of the turmoil which must have been going on in their hearts. We would take old rags to the ragyard to get pennies for the pictures. We would take bottles to another yard for still more pennies.
At the railway enbankment there was a lovely meadow. The high grass was an ideal place to take your dolls for a picnic (as opposed to the rubbish dumps nowadays!). We would spend time as little girls playing with our dolls prams and reading books and the sun always seemed to shine.
We went through a phase of hauling our dolls prams onto the top of the square brick air-raid shelters and would play for hours on top of it. Goodness knows where we got the strength from to drag our prams up there!
As we got a little older we would go on the railway lines coal-gathering. We felt no sense of danger, filling our shopping bags with coal. Then we would have ball hunting days, counting how many balls we could find in one day on the enbankment.
I could write a book, and probably will some day, on my friendship with Margaret, which is still as strong as ever. We have known each other from the age of 4 or 5.
One day Margaret and I decided we would have a 'party' and invite the boys - we would have been about 8 years of age at the time. We only lived around 100 yards from each other and often experimented with tin cans joined together with a long piece of string from our bedroom windows. These were supposed to act like a telephone, but they never did work. However, the party was supposed to be held in the brick air-raid shelter so we went to the local sweet shop, Enid's, and bought spearmint chews. These were lovely long pink slabs of spearmint about 8 inches long and 2 inches across, with little squares stamped out, looking a bit like an American apartment block! We then called into the green grocers, Mrs. Carfunkle, and bought some plums. Why we chose a combination of spearmint and plums I will never know!
Our mothers said they would each make a large jug of tea, so we invited about 8 boys and told them they must bring their own cups. Then the hostesses with the mostest lit candles and placed them on the jutting out bricks inside the air raid shelter, near to the roof! The shelter had a 'stable door' which swung outwards. We then placed the spearmint chews and plums in small sections where the boys could help themselves. We lit the candles (our parents did not know about this!) and waited for the boys to arrive. They finally turned up, waving their drinking vessels in the air. It was a hot and sunny day and we thought we were the 'bees knees' because we were having an indoor party. They all placed their cups on a trestle table and went on to taste the delicious goodies on offer. It seemed to be going quite well, the aroma of the children, the spearmint, the hot candle wax, the juicy plubs...it was lovely. However, one of the boys broke wind and suddenly the atmosphere changed. There were howls of 'Let me out! The stable door was flung open and the table and all the cups went flying. Needless to say, it was the end of our party.
Incidentally, one of the boys, Brian, used to be my sparring partner in 'comic races' That is, when his mother went out we would go into his house carrying piles of comics and lie on our bellies in front of the fire and see who could read the most comics. He was the very first boy to ply me with drink. We sort of got the idea that it was daring for him to open the pantry door, climb on a chair and get the 'Milk of Magnesia' down from the top shelf. I didn't know what it was, but the bottle was a pretty blue colour and we would enjoy a drink each! For years afterwards I could not see Milk of Magnesia without laughing! So much fun, so many happy memories.

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