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This contribution to the ´óÏó´«Ã½ People’s War was provided at an Event at Hethersett Library attended by the ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio Norfolk Action Desk. The story had been written and submitted to the website with the permission and on behalf of Beatrice Mary Ewart.

The Shelters

As I remember it,
They were always there, the air raid shelters:
Four of them for five blocks of flats — stairs we called them,
With the scars of their making left behind, for all to see.
A cramped site, we'd call it now.
They must have carried everything,
Wheelbarrowing through narrow passages,
Up steps, down steps, balancing on narrow planks:
Bricks and tools, cement and earth.
Like a giant Ground Force, they'd been racing against time.
Spiked railings, cut and bent, with gaps below and bars above -
On one, with a strong rope and a cushion
My Dad made a little swing for me.
Half bricks lay in a hollow crater that soon became a lake -
A great big puddle really — to jump in with our wellies,
Or aim the bricks to see who could make the biggest splash.
To one side, a shelter, behind it the walled pub garden where rhubarb grew.
They sell it to the jam factory, my Mother said.
The daring kids would round along the wall and jump the gap
to land on the roof of this refuge from Gerry's bombs.
And so they were at times when the sirens wailed.
My Mum would war me in the night
And wrap me in a blanket to carry me downstairs,
Across the back green into the dank smelling concrete shell
Whose strength was never tester, I'm glad to say.

Up there on the rooftops, we played amazing games.
The one abutting the Bunch o'Roses wall was out of bounds.
Behind net curtains, windows rattled.
Get off there, angry voices yelled.
The next was higher at one side and here,
Dressed up in clothes made out of newsprint paper,
We'd sing and dance the afternoons away.
The third, the one for our stair, always a ships being bombed by Kamakasi pilots.
We'd jump into shark-infested seas
And swim, breast stroke, to save our lives;
Or nurse the wounded as the planes roared overhead.
Between the wall and shelter four, the one we loved the best,
We'd clamber up the builders' careless slope of broken bricks and rubble:
Marking out rooms with doorstep chalk, we'd play at schools,
Sitting cross -legged as the teacher gave the naughty ones the belt!
At other times, an office; a police station, maybe;
Or a grand house where the murder took place
When we acted out the latest thriller at the pictures.
One day, as the victim lay in a dingy hotel room, we needed blood.
I know,cried Toshie and darted off.
The precious cochineal she brought was poured, like an ablation,
As we looked down at the body so cruelly done to death!

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