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By Adrian Loft

I can't forget the night they came and bombed the airfield near my home
The houses round us seared and scorched set fire by incendiary torch
The line of burned out fins that streamed across the field behind our house
Had ended at our garden fence and made us wonder............

The rattle of machine guns spread through our city fair a fearful dread
And many a family, homeless found, was comforted by neighbours 'round
That ‘42’ night, we heard next day the ‘fighters’ had all stayed away
Leaving York with no defence to suffer the terrible consequence

Clifton airfield H.Q. blown away and young men killed, their loss to mourn
Their parents saddened by the thought of children’s children never born
The bomb that razed the Fairway homes brought childhood joy (no school next day)
For hundreds of tiny panes of glass had shattered in this H.E. blast

North Yorkshire seen through childhood eyes when warplanes overflew the skies
And Clifton Moor was Clifton Drome where Pagey, Ron and I did roam
As children we would wander far ’cross Rawcliffe, Haxby, Wigginton
In York explore the alleyways and often round the Walls we’d run

Through farms and fields we’d hunt our prey the frog, the newt, the stickleback
We’d jump the ditches (well almost) then reluctant home to bed and smack
The trees we climbed and then fell down (each bump, with time, does make me groan)
The kids these days will never know the idyllic freedom that we owned

Peace came at last, I felt the surge of hope of better things to come
But war demanded such a charge that we’ve been burdened with since then
Perhaps our children’s children now will know a world without a war
The price of which will have been paid by those lost souls who’ve gone before

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