大象传媒

This story was submitted to the peoples war site by Rod Sutton of 大象传媒 Radio Cornwall Action CSV on behalf of Olive Young, the author, and has been added to the site wih her permission. The author fully understands the sites terms and conditions.

The war was to last from the age of eleven, until I was seventeen,
Too young for what might have been.
When the bombs came screaming down,
Was not very nice, it made us frown.
Nor when friends, in an Anderson shelter recieved a direct hit.
It almost caused me to have a fit.
The local school, was bombed, it blew up the hall,
Most times we slept through it all.
Fire bombs fell, set the street alight,
We were all up that night,
Was soon to start work,
Riding my bike I did not shirk,
With gas mask and tin hat strapped to my back,
Travelled in air raids there and back,
Had reached my early teens,
When war was at it's hieght,
We went to dances, and came home at night.
Raids would be at their worst,
The shrapnel would hit the bins,we'd hear the gunfire burst.
Being young we did not have much fear.
The doodle bugs, fell in that year,
The throbbing of the engines, filled us with alarm,
We'd shelter in doorways to keep out of harm,
When danger passed, would go on our way,
We had beeen spared for another day.
With the end of the war, life seemed flat,
To a life of peace we had to adapt.
The ravages of the war hit me in later years,
Realised I had suppressed my fears,
It was to play havoc with my life ahead,
Was always filled with surreptitious dread.
Now in my late seventies, I look back in time ,
Most of my life peace has been mine.
How lucky I have been,
The war now seems like a dream.

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