大象传媒

This story has been written onto the 大象传媒's People's site by CSV Storygatherer Robin.D.Bailey on behalf of the author Mrs Nancy Jolliff (nee Stephens). They fully understand the terms and conditions of the site.

The War was over. But, at my age - eleven - I had never known anything else. I remember saying to my father that I supposed newspapers would be smaller now that there woudn't be much news to report. He laughed and said that they would be much bigger, which turned out to be too true.

We didn't have a wireless. Mother didn't know whether to send us to school or not; so off we went to find that, sure enough, the school was closed. We wandered down to the village (Lanreath) where we saw a gaggle of other kids hanging around Frank's house. Frank Mitchell was a retired seaman who lived with his sister in the house on the corner, which had a Virginia creeper all over it with a stem the thickness of a man's arm. He had no children of his own; perhaps, that was why he was special for all the children of the village.

Frank was going to put up the flag. Would we like to come? Would we! We followed him into the church and through the little door in the corner of the tower. We began to climb, round and round. There was no light except for the little that came through tiny slits in the cobwebby wall. Up and up, round and round, it seemed like for ever. At last we could see into the bell chamber. At first, we saw only the great wheels, then the bells hanging underneath. They had hung silent throughout the war, it had been planned to use them to announce that the German invasion had begun. On and up some more and at long last we were out on the lead roof. The bundle that Frank carried was now unwrapped, and the huge Union Jack unfolded. It was enormous, big as a bed sheet. Some business with knots and the pulley followed, and in no time it was flyng bravely over our heads.

After marvelling at the view over the parapet, it was time to come down and eventually out of that little door and outside. We looked up. There flew our flag, big as a postage stamp.

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