大象传媒

I was born in Manchester in may,1939.When my father joined the navy to fight in the war,my mother and I went to Penrith in Cumberland to live with my grandparents,as did my mother's sister,Aunty Madge and her two children.We were totally removed from any bombing ofcourse,there between the mountains of the Lake District.My mother and aunt went out to work and my grandma looked after us.I hardly knew there was a war on until one day as a tiny child I was standing under the stomach of my heavily pregnant aunt and she was reading a telegram:my uncle,an R.A.F.flight sergeant,was reported missing in action.His grave has never been found though he was 6 miles off the coast of Sardinia when the plane was last heard of.
In the 80's someone who had bought the plane's log book in Sardinia wrote to the local newspaper asking for information about the pilot.My aunt hoped that it would help to find my uncle's grave but no luck.My youngest cousin never knew her father and my aunt never married again.She is now 91 and lives in a nursing home in Penrith.
I can still remember clearly looking up at her protruding stomach and seeing her holding the brown telegram and knowing as a three year old that something terrible had happened and that life would never be the same again.

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