It was one of those really marvellous mornings that only seem to happen in September. The sky was a clear deep blue all the way from horizon to horizon, though I could see the vapour trail of an aircraft as it made its seeming slow progress across the heavens. The sun was strong and bright, not too hot but pleasantly warm, though a light breeze gave the air a cool feel. Mother was sitting on the garden bench by the pond when I walked out with a coffee in my hand. She was seventy-eight just turned, and an amazing woman. Thought truth to tell she was starting to lose the battle with the universal enemy, old age. I walked to the bench and sat down beside her and we talked of all sorts of things for a short while and then our attention turned to the fish in the pond. One of the bigger fish mum calls brassy, it is a goldie colour with lots of black giving the impression of brass that hasn't been cleaned in a while. Mum was saying that in a couple more years we'd need a bigger pond for him as by then his length would exceed the width of the pond making it hard for him to turn round. I was dreamily giving this idea some thought when far of in the distance I became aware of an unusual sound. It started low a single drowning sound that claimed the scale to a high pitch giving it an urgency that seemed to go on and on. An air raid siren !
There was a sharp intake of breath beside me and I looked at my mum, recognition in her eyes was quickly followed by a look of panic. She started looking around hurriedly getting to her feet she started looking in all directions around the sky then asked me were the shelter was. I looked at her and said 'shelter?' quizzically. Yes for the air raid she replied. I toyed with the idea of telling her that this was the all clear, but thought better of it, as she'd then have worried that she hadn't heard the warning. I told her there was no air raid and the siren must be something to do with the show at the army base down the road. A moment passed and mum started to relax again though now muttering what silly girl she'd been.
My mother had been a child of about six years at the start of world war two. The sirens had been a fact of life back then, a dread sound, calling the population to their underground hiding holes, wondering whom they'd never see again. The loud bangs and thuds, the whole earth vibrating for what would have seemed to a child to be forever, and the dust falling from the ceiling. The pressing thoughts that these were their final minutes, the nightmare that she would become one of the ever increasing spaces in the classroom. Then the all clear and mother would go back to the school and the spaces in the classroom.
My mother obviously survived the war, and now it's kind of hard to imagine things like this happening to a child so young. Even with the soldiers coming back from war zones with things like Combat stress reaction or more recently Gulf War syndrome.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;
Age shall not weary them, nor do the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
These very famous words are just a part of a poem by Laurence Binyon that he called, The Fallen. Written 1914.
And for all those that live the nightmare still,
Thank you, we will remember you.
YOU ARE READING
When the bombers never came
Short StoryA short piece written to, for and about my Mother.
