大象传媒

Return to the Past

Jacky and I were happy, growing up in Sunderland, Co. Durham, during the war. Dad was in the Army and Mam was always working, so we had plenty of freedom, and lots of time to explore the places where bombs had fallen the night before. We spent hours in the ruins of a bakery, playing with the bins of flour, making strange, stretchy dough. We climbed skeleton staircases, heedless of danger.
I was a year older than Jacky, and I looked after him.
Every day I read the names on the Casualty List, posted on the railings of the library. Sometimes we saw the names of school -friends, or neighbours.
I had to read it out to Jacky, as he was going blind with the cataracts he鈥檇 been born with, but we didn鈥檛 let this small thing interfere with the fun of prowling in the bomb sites!
When we were told we were going to be evacuated to the country, we were excited, what an adventure!
But, on the day, down at the railway station with all the other kids, and some of the Mams鈥� crying, I missed Jacky.
There was I with my gas mask and a label tied to my coat, wearing everything I owned ,on that fine Summer day but no Jacky. I thought he鈥檇 got lost in the crowd, but Mam told me he wasn鈥檛 going. There鈥檇 been a letter from the hospital, he was to have an operation on his eyes.
I was pushed on to the train, bewildered and alone. I think my heart broke a bit, and this big girl of eight years old just cried her eyes out.
The days and weeks that followed are a blur of misery.
I found myself in Leyburn Yorkshire ,and of course the last to be chosen in the awful lottery for new homes.
Twice, I was moved to a new 鈥渂illet鈥� wondering what I had done wrong, and not telling anyone about the men who had abused me.
My final home was with a retired headmistress, Miss Lambert, who was strict but kind. Her other boarders were student teachers who took me along when they went to visit historical places. It was from them, I acquired my lasting love of History. My thanks to those teachers who tried so hard to cheer a homesick child. They gave me a wondrous gift.
The highlights were when my Dad hitch-hiked from his barracks at Catterick to visit me. I showed him around my lonely haunts, and rode home on his shoulders.
The other time was when my Mam brought Jacky by train to visit. He had pads of cotton wool on his eyes, and I had wanted to show him this wonderful place of fields and woods, The misery of his helplessness was worse than not having him with me.
I don鈥檛 know how long I was away, but my return was greeted by a new baby brother .David was born in 1941 during a bad air-raid when Binn鈥檚 was bombed and the burning town turned the midnight sky red, but I hardly noticed.
Jacky and I were together again, and Jacky was reading the print off our comics with his new eyes!.
We cheered when a bomb fell on our school, and we ran out during air raids to find pieces of hot shrapnel. One day, we were walking to school when an aeroplane swooped low and raked the street with machine gun fire. We threw ourselves into a
Privet hedge. And only mentioned it that night as we chattered in bed.
We grew lean, and were always hungry. We were happy, and war to us only meant waiting.
Eventually the war was over, and we grew up. But we didn鈥檛 forget.
I live in Worcestershire now, and last year I went back for the first time to Leyburn. After more than sixty years, I found myself able to retrace each lonely footstep of that long ago girl.
Kindness and cruelty both leave thumb prints on the memory of these children wrenched out of time and place.
I think Jack too, knows how that feels.

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