大象传媒

WAR CHILD

A city preparing for war is one of my very first memories. I had barely time to acknowledge my own existence before my tender young brain was bombarded by scenes of devastation and suffering. Quite suddenly there were less men around and my little world had become inhabited by pale-faced women who took turns at wearing the same black clothes and I was made to kneel on cold stone floors, in front of a statue of a bleeding, almost naked man, whilst grownups talked in whispers over my bowed head...

I鈥檇 been attending school for less than a year and was just beginning to accept the disruption that war had brought to my life. With a mere six summers to my credit I was too young to have any real awareness of the mysterious world that supposedly existed beyond the school at one end of our road, and the square block of the telephone exchange at the other.
My "countryside" was the "back-field", a patch of overgrown land behind our small council house, a wonderland of caterpillars, spiders, butterflies and all things prickly and crawly.
In summer "our road" would become my second playground, its tar-covered surface all soft and pliable and covered by fast-rising air bubbles, a sticky-kneed heaven where we would scream and laugh and crawl around on hands and knees trying to burst as many tar-bubbles as we could - happiness, was finding a bubble that squirted water!
War was still merely a three-letter word, like cat and sat, that grown-ups kept repeating. I came to associate it with newspapers ... and the voices that crackled tinnily from the battery-powered wireless my parents spent so much time listening to.
War. I failed to relate the word to the sudden escalation of activity in and around my insular world. My immature senses registered only a blurred impression of throbbing engines as huge wagons sped back and forth, their huge wheels leaving deep ruts and pretty patterns in our tar as men with picks and shovels destroyed our playgrounds by building ugly tunnels in the field, and strange houses-without-windows in the roads. The air itself, my whole world, vibrated to the seemingly never ending chatter of engines and road drills ... and the rumble-and-swish of concrete-mixers lulled me to sleep at night.
Then came the mournful wailing noise that stirred grown-ups into frenzied activity, but filled us kids with excitement - once we learned to associate the eerie sound with the excitement of whole nights spent in those new, damp-smelling tunnels. There was an air of mystery and magic about being crammed into a confined space with so many of our neighbours. Even the grown-ups started to lose their tension - especially when we all sang songs, played games or ate sandwiches and, occasionally, cake!

I was beginning to adjust to this new world when my life was disrupted once again. I sensed something was wrong when my dad took the day off from the factory where he made something called munitions, and my mother stood me in the sink and scrubbed every inch of me - before dressing me in the new, ugly-but-hard-wearing clothes some stranger had brought.
I thought it must be a school party. But when we were shepherded into big vans and some of the older, more perceptive kids started whimpering, I lost no time in joining in.
Then we were taken to a railway station, each and every one of us carrying paper-wrapped butties and brown-painted cardboard suitcases. We also had a gas mask slung around our necks - and our own secret nightmare about its use. There was soot and smoke, noise and activity, and people in uniforms marching back and forth.
We were single-filed onto the train and my sister and I, same as everyone else, rushed to press our faces against the windows so we could search the faces of the crowds for a final glimpse of our parents. Then our cries and sobbings were drowned by a great hiss-and-roar and the train began to move and we screamed even louder ... and no one explained why our parents didn't want us any more.

We arrived - somewhere. It was late evening and I was too tired and numbed to cry or complain when they took my sister from me.
The rest of us were left with a bunch of strangers who spoke a language I could not understand and moved amongst us as though selecting the biggest and juiciest. They kept reaching for me, lifting my cardboard name tag - then dropping it and moving on. For the very first time in my life I was glad to be skinny.
I watched my companions being taken away, numbers dwindling until there were only four of us left and I couldn鈥檛 find a corner dark enough to hide in and a man and woman came and looked at my label, nodded to each other, and took me out into the darkness.
Narrow lanes seemed to go on forever. Then, abruptly, we were inside a house and someone was pushing a mug of hot cocoa in my hand. They kept speaking to me in their strange language, laughing when I stayed silent, amused by the way I stared back at them above the rim of the mug.
With surprising gentleness the woman undressed and washed me. Then, unaccountably, she re-dressed me in a funny suit and put me to bed - not a flock mattress on the floor - a real, whole, bed ... just for me! I lay in the middle of it, eyes screwed tight shut so I wouldn鈥檛 see the demons when they came for me.
Despite my determination not to fall asleep, I awoke to sunlight, strange sounds - and, through the window, a new, green world filled with trees and fields that went on forever.
During the following months I hardly ever heard the word war!

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