大象传媒

During WW2 I was living in Cardiff with my Marine Engineer father my mother and my recently born sister,I had just started school when the war began not one of lifes greatest triumphs was school,I did not not go but it took me a very long time to get there,far more interesting things lay along the route to school shop windows to look in men at work to watch so I often arrived late this of course marked me out to the staff who were never slow at showing their displeasure an example of which was the craze among little boys of lifting little girls dresses, when the air raid warning sounded one day and we all trooped into the shelter laughing and fooling around I of course took the chance of teasing the little girls this resulted in me being dragged outside by the ear by one of the teachers for the rest of the air raid, my mother must have had reports of my late arrival from the school and one morning after being up most of the night because of an air raid she took me to school,I was shocked even Mum was on their side,we duly arrived at the end of the street where the school was to find a column of black smoke rising from the site of the school I cheered silently, careful not to let Mum know how happy I was,serve the school rightI thought not giving the slightest thought to any injured that is one of the few memories I have of my mother,the following Christmas the night after we all had been to see a pantomine I was taken out to the countryside to stay with my grandparents Dad and Mum returned to Cardiff with my sister where a few short hours later my mother and sister were killed when our house had a direct hit,Dad was buried for 48 hours I believe, I knew nothing of this until some time later coming home from the village school my grandfather took me aside "your mother and sister are dead and your Dad is in the front room" no messing about with fancy words did grandad,straight from the shoulder take it or leave it,he was an old war horse joining the Observer Corps when he was 72 and riding a great heavy bike up a mountain to go on duty, I hated schools all my young life until my last school at Roath Park when we had moved back to Cardiff and teachers returned from the forces awakened in me a great need for learning what a different school life may I have had if they had been there from the beginning

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