just a boy chapter ten

Chapter Eleven

Trouble doesn't travel uphill

I was five now and feeling quite grown up. Mum explained to me that I had missed a birthday whilst in the Sanatorium, and she made me a bread pudding as a special treat. I was quite enjoying my new role as 'man of the house'. I mentioned to Mum about the porridge, egg, bacon, sausage and fried bread breakfasts that Nurse Pamela used to give me in the Sanatorium, and Mum patiently explained rationing to me. She told me we were only allowed one egg per person per week, and two rashers of bacon per person per fortnight.
"We just have to take the rough with the smooth, and be grateful for small mercies." Mum had a saying for everything, and it always made sense.

We were living in number eleven Halsbury Road, and our house was the second one in . We looked directly down the hill. Mum said that the other side of the road was the 'posh side'. This was because they had paint on their doors and flowers in their small, but neat front gardens. I never forgot Mum's words, and throughout the years I was to spend in the road, I always looked up to Mr and Mrs Knight, Mr and Mrs Miller and Mrs Annie Cole who lived across the road from us.

The middle of our road was dominated by two large air raid shelters, each containing six bunks. Unlike the bunks in the tunnel, they were all new and clean. The shelters looked and smelled as if they had never been used, and I played in them with Diane and Pamela who lived in number seven.
Pamela was a tall girl with pigtails, and like Peggy Woodruff she had very large feet. I asked Pamela if she would like to play 'doctors and nurses' with me in the shelter. She ran indoors, and then returned to tell me she wasn't allowed to play with me again.

Comments

Just a Boy From Bristol

JUST A BOY FROM BRISTOL Chapter One Through the eyes of a child On the 3rd September 1939 a war started that would change the course of history. It also denied millions of children across the world the opportunity for a normal, happy childhood. I know, because I was one of them. My father had re-enlisted in the Royal Navy as soon as the storm clouds of war had started to gather over Europe. He left my mother to bring up two young children alone, in poverty, and in what was a scary, changing world. My mother was an incredibly beautiful young woman, but she was emotionally fragile. She was a wild, scatty, free spirited, capricious butterfly, who was constantly fluttering around, unable to settle. In many ways she was totally unsuited to the task in hand, but she was a mother, and she did what mothers do best. She cared for me; she did it well, and I will be eternally grateful to her. Mum, I thank you for teaching me how to...

Just a boy from Bristol PART TWO "We will have bluebells in the spring, and roses in the summer," said Mum when we moved into Halsbury Rd, and for the first time we had a garden of our very own. Sadly for Mum, whatever she planted, however hard she worked, the promised flowers refused to grow. When I wasn't playing football, Knock out Ginger or Releaster 1-2-3 in Eugene Street, i wandered off down town. I travelled far and wide, exploring all the many bombed buildin ... g sites which were all over Bristol. I admired, in close up, the beauty of the blue, purple, white and yellow clusters of Buddleia, Campion, Rosebay Willow herb, and bramble bushes; I sat, like a young king, astride piles of bricks and rubble; I closed my eyes and listened to the birdsong and the buzzing of the bees, and then I picked clumps of the colourful weeds, and rushed home to present them to my mother. She always smiled sadly, and kissed the alread...

Compliments, Cutlets and Candy. By Michael John Kelly Chapter One The whole of the moon He had long since abandoned his long and fruitless pursuit of perfection. The cruel vagaries of life had taught him that perfection was merely an illusion. It was like a rainbow, or a reflection in a still, clear stream. A thing of beauty, right there in front of his eyes, but remaining forever tantalisingly just out of reach. The reality was that there was always a flaw; always some tiny imperfection that would spoil even the most magical of moments. He had slowly and reluctantly accepted that near- perfect was as good as it ever got. That fateful Saturday morning in Bristol was a prime example. It was April 11th, 1992, and all the ingredients were there for the making of a perfect day. Saturday was, by some way, the highlight of his week, and not only was the weather set fair, but it was spring, and...

Just a boy from Bristol

Search This Blog