大象传媒

THREE MEMORIES OF A FOUR YEAR OLD

My memories of the wartime are associated with my home, my family, the area in which I lived and the people I encountered. These three memories are of people that I encountered when four years old in 1943 - 1944 and reflect some of the sadness and horror of war.

Our home was in Green Road at Terriers, a small village near High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire. This first recollection focuses on our window cleaner. My memory is of watching our window cleaner in awe, and with admiration at his adaptation and dexterity as, with his one arm, he climbed the ladder to an upstairs window carrying his bucket of water and wash-leathers. A four year old鈥檚 imagination could cope with what it might be like to have to manage with only one arm, but not the trauma and difficulties this man must have faced. I knew that he had been in the army and that the loss of his arm was a result of war. He probably wore khaki army trousers. It seems to me that it was his left arm that he lost and that the amputation was above the elbow and at the time that I am recalling he had no prosthesis fitted. He carried a hook, which he placed on a rung of the ladder to which he hung the bucket whilst in action at a window. He used to come into our scullery at the side of the house to get water and would chat with my mother. We liked him. On one occasion whilst in the process of cleaning the windows at the front of the house he told my mother (I was playing in the garden so was aware of the conversation) about the loss of his arm and his regiment. There was a coincidental link with my father鈥檚 army service, on which my mother commented, so at a guess our window cleaner served with the Royal Armoured Corps, and was probably injured in one of the battles in North Africa. I regret that I do not know his name - maybe someone reading this will recognise my window cleaner.

Our village (Terriers) had a first rate butcher鈥檚 shop, where my mother frequently shopped. Whilst there with her I would watch the butcher鈥檚 boy operating the bacon slicer: a hand operated machine with a large circular blade to slice the bacon. From time to time his long dark fringe would fall across his eyes and with a flick of his head he would toss his hair away from his eyes. One day we went shopping as usual, but the bacon slicer was silent, 鈥渕y鈥� butcher鈥檚 boy was no longer working at the shop; he was now old enough to join the armed services - probably the army. I was sad that he was not there, but other customers at the shop were sad too. Theirs was a deeper sadness, unspoken, undescribed, but perceived by me, and I am sure not fully understood at that time. The butcher, an older man, said to one of the ladies who had expressed her dismay, 鈥淗e had to go鈥�. That was how it was, I knew. But this lady shook her head and looked so sad. She I suspect had known 鈥渕y鈥� butcher鈥檚 boy from a lad and would have seen him grow up in the village. In retrospect I think she would have been able to recall the first world war and to have known the losses and injuries sustained by her family and friends as well as that of the then present war. I hope this lad, 鈥渕y鈥� butcher鈥檚 boy, came back safely from the war, and that the experiences did not scare him for life.

From time to time we would go into the town of High Wycombe; often I would see men (always men) in the streets of the town heavily bandaged. The more bandages, the more dramatic I considered them: bandaged arms and legs, bandages wrapped around heads, arms in slings, men in wheel chairs, men (with only one leg) swinging on crutches. Dramatic. Sad. These men were, I knew, courageous men recovering from war injuries and hopefully being enabled to move forward with their lives. Presumably they came from a nearby convalescence centre. A clear memory for me, just part of the town, just part of the war, just part of growing up with the effects of the war all around.

Sadly I moved away from Terriers in 1945 so can add no follow up; if anyone who reads this can add further details and names then I would be delighted to hear.

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