Page 70 - Exile-ebook

70 AN EXILE OF THE MIND BOMBED BUT NOT BOWED 71

Bombed but not bowed

Emerging from the rubble. Violin concerto in a bomb shelter.
Skin art revealed in a wartime hospital.
Schooling begins at knee height.

y earliest wrung-out memory was, as a mere tot, the world
Mtearing itself apart and exploding into flames and flying
debris. Air raid sirens droned of terror from a menacing sky and
operatic doom would bubble over into the cold war years with its
threat of nuclear extinction to cast despair on a sensitive mind.
On moonless nights the streets were dark as rows upon rows of
houses with blackness on their windows hid the glimmer of light
from enemy planes.
I was perambulated through dark alleyways as the sound
and fury of bombers, twenty thousand feet above, let loose their
carnage. Oblivious to the shrill of sirens and rainless thunder,
my mother calmly pushed toddler and pram to visit relatives
long since scattered to the sanctuary of bomb shelters, inhaling
the rubbery pongs of child-fright gas masks.
The ‘horse-headed’ apparition of my mother emerged through
clouds of dust to squint through her goggle-eyed mask amidst
smouldering rubble in a street that was no longer familiar. We
were taken by the Home Guard to a nearby house. One of several
still standing with windows intact. The kettle already steaming
on the hob for a cup of strong tea.
A backyard air raid refuge, an Anderson shelter, was shared
with our neighbour. Partially buried and covered with an arch
of corrugated iron with soil added to soften the blows and grow

Operatic doom bubbled over into the cold war years.