大象传媒

1939 - 1945

A voung boy, his sister and his parents sit by the swimming pool on a glorious Sunday morning in early September. It is just past I I o'clock in the morning. Their parents hold each other closely -"it is war" they say "oh no not again"!
The boy looks down at the blue water with shafts of light rippling against the white tiles; he longs to slip into its cool depths, but this is not the time.
The word 'war' means nothing to him, but it soon will. A few months later this boy, his sister and their mother kiss their father farewell and drive away into the safety of the countryside. The boy turns and sees his father waving at the gate as they turn the corner.
They are in the countryside. The wind is blowing; the first indication of the autumn gales. "Let's go and fly our kite" the sister says. As the kite soars into the sky diving and wheeling with its long tail dancing behind, an irate policeman arrives at the gate of the field.
"Take that kite down immediately" he says. "You might be signalling to the enemy". The kite is reluctantly wound down until it lies limply on the ground. It will not fly again for five long years. News comes through that the countryside is not the safest place to be, it is by the sea. This the boy cannot understand but off they go to a small boarding house on a cliff top.
The beach is closed because of possible invasion.
The sea washes in and out on the deserted beach which the delighted seagulls now have to themselves, The sea glints in the autumn sunshine and they long to be in its inviting depths, but maybe this is reserved for invading Germans.
Months later. more news; no, the seaside is dangerous,better in London, so home they go. Their father is standing at the gate watching for their return.
A week later the boy returns to his prep-school. The siren sounds. They are ushered into a small cellar below the school by a stressed headmistress. "No talking" she says. The boy giggles and says something and is soundly slapped, it hurts. he glances down and sees a small girl laughing at him from under a table - it is the headmistress's daughter. This he never forgets.
Years pass. The family are happy to live or die together.
Flying bombs arrive. The boy is playing with a friend by the side of a house waiting for his mother to come on her bike and take him home. A huge explosion 100 yards away throws him onto his back, but he scrambles up and runs down the road. A bicycle lies on the road in pieces with a body beside it. His heart almost stops, but it is not his mother; she had delayed her departure because she wanted to hear the news on the radio.
Much later in the war a neighbour takes him to the local cinema and the newsreel shows the liberation of Belsen. He is deeply and profoundly shocked. Nothing has ever prepared him for the reality of war and the images stayed with him forever.
This boy now an elderly man, but the war is still vivid in his mind. He returns to his prep school for a reunion and meets the young girl who laughed at him from under the table. She is now retiring as the headmistress herself. Together they return to the cellar but she remembers nothing of the episode and looks at him strangely when he talks about it.
He visits his now very ancient mother who can now hardly remember who he is and that he is her son. He sits with her gently holding her hand and thinking that by a quirk of fate she has had the gift of another sixty odd years of life since that day of the flying bomb. Fate or God's hand, he has never ever been able to decide.
He sits in the sun and remembers back over all those years. It was nothing compared with all that has and is happening to children now all over the world.
For him, however, it was probably the most exciting time in his life and increasingly the memories grow sharper with time.

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