大象传媒

Sometimes as I walked home after school Mr. Corns, the milkman, would catch up with me, and give me a ride in his float. Empty churns clanked and bumped, the ladies hooked on to their handles swung and rattled. These measured half a pint, one pint and a quart sizes so together with the clip-clip of the pony鈥檚 hooves and the roll of the wooden wheels we made our own music as we travelled along the narrow land bordered by a myriad of herbs and wild flowers such as ladies lace, vetch, brambles, mint, parsley and comfrey with many trees in the woods which stretched on either side, Green and friendly when you had company but a bit scary on your own in the fading light of a winter evening when the bare branches seemed to reach out brittle fingers to touch you.

Often he would hand me the reins; Dolly needed little guidance as she trotted briskly towards her stable. I loved to catch her shifting bay coloured buttocks, her long tail it swung from side to side or as she flicked the flies away from her flanks in the summer and to see her heavy mane lift as she moved. Her coat gleamed with good health. I was sorry when we reached the path to my home, which was a converted stables. I wondered if any ponies like Dolly had lived there before us.

It seemed as if only a short time passed and yet to be a world away when there was the threat of war. Then this lane was lined with large oil-burning braziers. These were lit on clear nights with a moon, to create a smoke screen around Crewe. The railway works were an important target for German planes. Here many famous steam engines were built and it became vital to the war effort. Also the Rolls Royce works nearby, originally built to make car parts, were soon adapted to turn out the famous aero engines that powered the Spitfire fighter plane. The drifting smoke and acrid smell from the crude oil was most unpleasant but it proved to be an effective shield.

Another safeguard was the delivery of gas masks. So one we September day in 1938 our small Humber car was filled to the roof with cardboard boxes each holding one. there was a string attached which could be slung over the shoulder, for they must be available at all times and kept close at hand when indoors. My mother and I had the job of delivering these to every person in every house in the villages around Crewe. It was a tiring and depressing task but essential. By September 30 as many as thirty million had been issued over the country.
Small children had a Micky Mouse face on theirs but it did not prevent them being frightened by the confined feeling and strong smell of rubber. Babies had a cot-like contraption in which they could lie in safety and be carried around, perhaps to a shelter. People were very particular about having their gas mask with them always and it was strange to see well-dressed men and women on their way to work with their length of string across the shoulder and the box swinging about as they hurried for a bus or train.

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