大象传媒

This story was submitted to the Peoples War web site by Hertfordshire Libraries working in partnership with the Dacorum Heritage Trust on behalf of the author, Mrs S. Willmington. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

When I look up into a clear sky and see several airliners silently gliding to their various destinations, it is astonishing to realize that people in remote areas of the world don鈥檛 know what they are. They see them, but could never imagine that they carry hundreds of people inside.
How different then it was for me, who, even in my pram, would cry out if I heard an aircraft, and wait for my mother鈥檚 skyward gaze to grip on to the plane above, and turn pale with terror. She would grab me out of the pram and run, her hurried breaths in my ear, and me screaming.
I knew so well people were inside, and they would have aerial dog-fights with each other, or swing low and strafe people queuing for bread, with gun-fire. But, sometimes my mother鈥檚 gaze would grip onto one, and she would smile and say it was all right, it was Daddy鈥檚 plane.
He was in the air force, stationed at Lark Hill in Wiltshire and we had been evacuated from London, and lived in Judge Jeffrey鈥檚 House, in Bratten, Wilts (fortunately for me, as it happens, for that is how I came to be born.) Dad went AWOL one night and made his way to our house, and frightened the life out of my mother by climbing in the window. Apparently, he was very affronted on returning to camp, not by being charged for breaking out of camp, but also for breaking in again, in the morning.
Later, Dad was posted abroad, and although the British Forces were not to tell anyone where they were going, my parents had worked out an elaborate code, and Mum always knew where about was Dad.
After a while Mum and I returned to Kilburn, London, to look after my Grandma who was ill. I used to sleep between Mum and Grandma, under a table, which was a common means of protection from falling debris. There were raids, and searchlights and bombs. People used to rush into underground stations when the sirens sounded, a curious, whining sound, ascending and descending, which even now, 60 years later moulds my stomach into a knot, when I hear one on a World War 2 film on the television.
Bombs fell, glass shattered everywhere, half a street that had been there yesterday would be gone to-day. Great piles of rubble which took years to re-build would be hidden behind big advertisement boards, and if you travelled upstairs in a double decked bus, you could see over the top, and look at all the different kinds of wall-paper that people had in their rooms, which now faced the street on the edge of a ledge. The main doorway of a church in Maida Vale stood stubbornly in a weed filled crater.
I lay in my Grandma鈥檚 arms many nights afraid to fall asleep, while she sewed me a rag doll named Anne, the same name that we two shared, by the light of the coal fire. But what frightened my Mum most was a weird leering voice she called 鈥淟ord Haw-Haw.鈥� He would interrupt wireless programmes and threaten us like a bully, laugh with mirth, and sail out of sound again, before the music of the 大象传媒 Light Programme returned. Mum would drop what she was doing, and run downstairs crying and sinking into my Grandma鈥檚 arms. Grandma would tell her not to let it worry her, because that was what he was trying to do.
For me, the most frightening things were these Germans. I knew how they looked; they wore khaki uniforms and round helmets, and carried guns, like the British Soldiers, a bit. I knew that because my youngest uncle, Ralph, lived with us, and he had bought me a toy German Soldier made of lead; and a tank that shot matchsticks. People spoke about the Germans all the time and it seemed to me that sometimes that they shortened their name to 鈥淕erms~鈥� and just before dinner you would have to wash them off of your hands, even 鈥榯hough you couldn鈥檛 see them, 鈥淭o get rid of the germs.鈥� I suppose washing my hands before dinner could be thought of as my personal war effort.
I was fortunate, my Dad came home. Many children in my school were brought up by Mum鈥檚 alone, or by Aunts, or Grandmas and some were adopted children. I had an adopted cousin. It was normal.
Some men returned home with shell-shock which could cause the most terrible stutters, or irritating facial ticks, and flicks of the head to knock your hair into place. Some men had a false leg, or a false arm, like my uncle Morgan. My Uncle Arthur was blown up in a tank just before I was born. So he never came home, and neither did my friend鈥檚 big brother; and my Granddad died at home of consumption.
I was terrified of thunder storms, I thought they were raids, and Mum very patiently taught me they were harmless. Therefore when one occurred while I was at school, I was unprepared for the outcome. Children left their desks and ran to the windows, screaming. Many threw themselves under their desks. I think I might have cried too.
The teacher had a hard job quietening her class down again, and even then there were sobs and trembles from various ones as the thunder rolled away into the distance.
When all fear of planes and storms had gone, and my Dad had taught me to recognise a Spitfire, and a rare Hurricane, we went for a day to the sea-side. Mum and Dad had tea from a flask, and I played in the sand with a little German girl. We could both only speak our own languages, but communicated with signs. Suddenly a Spitfire flew overhead, and this little girl threw herself flat on the beach, screaming.
Her Dad came over, smiled and nodded to my parents, picked the little girl up in his arms, comforting her, and carried her back to her Mum.
Then my Dad and her Dad stood a little way down the beach, side by side for ages, just gazing out over the sea, hands in their pockets, silently contemplating, remembering, regretting.
THE END

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