大象传媒

These memories were added to the website by a volunteer on behalf of Tim Wallis. Tim fully understands the websites rules.

Tim recalls his memories as a very young boy, who because of the war, recalls seeing his father only occasionally whilst he was on leave from the army. The innocent and magic awareness of having suddenly a father's presence in the house was the primary theme of his story.

All the years of the war I waited for his sudden magic. One day Mum and I would be living on our own and somehow I would be good and naughty at the same time. The next day Mum would take me upstairs and open her bedroom door; 'Shush, there's your father, don't you make a noise'.

Once I crept up to his uniform hanging on the wsrdrobe door. It smelled of motorbikes tobacco and bullets. His belt was on the bottom of the bed and shone importantly. Afterwards, when I had my tea I climbed onto the settee to look out of the back room window, and there was my Dad in the garden, digging. He had suddenly appeared, like magic!

Then he would be off again, somewhere far away.

Mum wanted the back room decorated, and she engaged a local decorator Mr March to wallpaper the room. Normally she would get Dad to do it, but he was away.

Before Mr March's redecoration I was allowed to play how I liked in the back room, including drawing on the walls. But not too near the fire. To get a fire going Mum lit pieces of kindling, and then held a sheet of the News Chronicle across the opening. We used to wait, trying not to breathe. If you made any noise you wouldn't hear the magic moment when you had to whip the sheet away, and if you were too late the fire took hold of the paper and sucked it up the chimney, which could be set alight. And since our road was Park Grove, Mum said such a disgrace was to be avoided at all costs, even if it was the Black Country. Being bombed was worse, but there were not enough bombers around after they got fed up with bombing Birmingham.

It was a pity that dad was not there as he knew about decorating. Then one day Dad came back, we were in the back room, Dad lifted me up higher and higher and I could see the moths and flies all dried up in the speckled bowl; and then I was upside down; and then I was close to the bristles on his face, and he held me even harder, and lifted me up even higher. Mum came in and she told Dad not to bump me on the ceiling which made me laugh but my Dad just kept lifting me up.

Higher than I'd ever been before.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.