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I was lying in the long sweet grass. Above the waving green an immense blue sky. I could hear the skylark’s song and was searching for the fluttering singer. Suddenly I saw her. Much closer than I’d thought. I concentrated on the tiny bird and the song seemed to become clearer, the notes more distinct. The grass was warm and comfortable, I felt safe.

Nobody knew where I was. A strange, secure aloneness but not lonely. I wasn’t old enough to understand what the grown-up world was doing. The wireless constantly talked about Germany and Allies and North Africa and Spitfires and Messerschmits. My skylark was the most important thing in the sky. Then I heard voices. The voices of my friends who lived in Oak Place. The lark heard them, was suddenly silent and dropped out of the sky. The moment was gone. Forever.

Oak Place was a long steep cul-de-sac of semis built of rough brick in the thirties. We lived at the top of the hill. All the people that mattered lived at the top of the hill. It was a community. Everybody knew each other very well. They went into each others houses, and sat on each others Utility furniture. They all used Christian names.there were a lot of kids, a lot of mothers but not many fathers. But this didn’t seem strange; it had always been like this. It was a world of women and children. The few fathers around were either old colliers or walked with a limp. I had a mother at home and a father in the army that I did not know. When he left to go to war I was too young to remember. I knew what he looked like from box Brownie photos. Usually with a fold mark across the middle. Sometimes new photographs would arrive from foreign countries. My mother would give them to me to study the latest image of my father whilst she read the accompanying letter. There were pictures of him with other soldiers dressed in shorts standing by huge anti-aircraft guns somewhere in the desert. Or dressed in heavy overcoats knee deep in snow standing by a saggy tent somewhere in the mountains. Always smiling, I thought he must be having a good time. Why wasn’t he here? Why was Peter Walley’s dad at home and not mine? But then most of my friends had dads who didn’t live at home so it must be alright. If the situation was questioned the answer was ‘because there’s a war on’.
In fact most questions received the same answer.

‘Can we buy some oranges?’

‘Why hasn’t the corner shop got any chocolate?’

‘Why can’t we have real eggs instead of yellow powder?’

‘Because there’s a war on’. Must be the standard excuse given to all kids my age I thought. The war.

Everything adult was about war. The queue outside Ferneyough’s butchers shop talked nothing but war. Even prayers were about war. The music on the wireless was constantly interrupted by a man with a posh, deep voice who talked about the war. ‘Here is the news…..´óÏó´«Ã½â€¦..London’…. I asked what would be on the radio in place of the news when the war was over. Seemed a reasonable question.

We lived at number 37, and together with all the other houses on our side of the street enjoyed the rear view of the green. Years before it had been a golf course. Now the golf course occupied the middle ground. A very much reduced club of nine holes and a rickety clubhouse desperately in need of a coat of paint. Immediately over the back fence was our play world. Our jungle. Our wild west. Whatever we wanted it to be. Acres and acres of long grass, trees, a newt pond, a derelict barn (haunted), and a steep sandy escarpment. What more could an adventurer want? Beyond the golf course was Weston Wood, parts of which man had never trod. Impenetrable undergrowth. Dark, watching, whispering, threatening, inviting. To get to Weston Wood the quick way was a real challenge, a major dare. The trick was to crouch hidden in the perimeter hedge, ready like a coiled spring. As soon as the golfers had driven off the first tee we’d explode from the hedge bottom like hares, at the same time looking for golf balls to snatch off the fairway without losing any of our incredible speed. There was also another risk to make the whole challenge even spicier, Farmer Bartlam, who had a farm nearby and rented fields from the golf club, had taken to lurking in some trees on the opposite side of the fairway with his dog. A border collie called Bob, whose black and white form was often seen streaking at a hundred miles an hour across the sea of green like a torpedo on its way to destroy a small boy. The sight of Bob at full speed gave us all the energy to find another ten miles an hour and get to the wood first. Bob would never enter Weston Wood. That was our territory. There we were brave, at home, full of courage.

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• Sports Days

This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Genevieve Tudor on behalf of Graham Colclough and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

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