大象传媒

CHAPTER XVI THE END OF THE WAR

When the war was drawing to a close and I was thirteen,the Allies were liberating all the people in the concentration camps.
The horrifc stories and pictures in the newspapers gave me bad dreams.It all came as an awful shock to me.
I had spent the war years playing with my friends and living with a loving family.I hadn't really suffered any hardship at all, and yet all those millions of people in Europe and the Far East had endured horror after horror.I hadn't realided how cruel human beings can eb to one another.
Gradually all the men in the armed forces came home.Frank came home from Italy for that months leave when he and Marjorie were marruied.
The day Frank came home we were expecting Marjorie to come to our house for mid day dinner.I was as usual playing in the street when I saw her turn the corner.I knew she didn't know that Frank had arrived home ,so I danced up to her chanting"Frank's home,Frank's home" She took off down Woodbine Street like a bat out of hell.Well they hadn't seen each other for two and a half years.
I ran after her and we both hurtled down the steps into the basement area and in through the kitchen dood.
Marjorie ran past mum who was cooking the dinnerand into the room where Frank was.
I went to run in after her but my mum practically caught me by the scruff of my neck and said"Oh no you don't.They don't want you in there".
We all eventually sat down to dinner grinning like cheshire cats.That was a lovely day!
It took years for the world to recover from the war.
Devasted Europe had to be rebuilt,as well as our own cities and towns.Not only buildings but the scial structure as well.
Rationing went on for ages, as countries with food had to feed those who hadn't any.
It was the end of the war, and also the end of my childhood.
I left school in December 1945 and went to work at the Lockheed in the aircraft drawing office.
I thought I would train as a tracer,but found I wasn't keen on that and left after a few months to take up a new career.

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