A Childs War Read Online Free PDF Page A

laughter broke out and this gave Edna her cue to start gathering up the plates and cereal bowls. When all of them stood up from the table, George took Alex out into the garden and solemnly inspected the pie dish with him
    Alex and Edna, with the addition of George at the weekends, expected to live in this manner for no more than a month in the autumn of 1940.

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    George had dutifully brought up thicker coats and other things they needed for colder weather as long as they were malleable enough to carry on the Black and White coach from Victoria. He stayed at a colleague’s flat near the store during the week but went back to their house in Raynes Park now and again to see if all was well and collect what he could for them.
    On a Thursday morning at the time of the year when a first cold chill is felt, Edna and Alex went on the bus to Elliston and Cavell’s store, “Just to get out for an hour or two,” as Edna told Joyce. She took Alex to the Cadena Café in the Cornmarket and they had coffee and an orange squash. The departments of the store were beginning show wartime shabbiness by now, since there was a limit to what could be sold imposed by government regulations and by the new clothing coupons. Edna went next to book seats for the variety show at the New Theatre for the Saturday matinée to which all three of them would go, leaving Graham, Joyce and John the freedom of their own house for at least half a day.
    Edna realized they were just round the corner from Gloucester Green where the coach from London arrived and deposited its passengers.
    â€œThat’s where your Dad will come in tomorrow night,” she told her son.
    Then they had walked back up to Carfax and waited for the Botley bus to return to the Pattersons’ house. They went upstairs and sat in the front seat on the left. The bus had been especially built low so that it could get under the railway bridge without having its roof ripped off like the lid of a tin of sardines, which they would see happen to an ordinary sized one some time later. On this one, you went up the top of the stairs into a low trough at the right hand side and stepped up into the long seats.
    Struggling all the way to the front at Alex’s insistence produced irritability in his mother. As the bus went along, Alex saw the grim-looking castle keep and asked Edna for an explanation of it, which she gave but not so as to satisfy him. She was more at ease pointing out the marmalade factory and yet another ‘Puffing Billy’ as she called it on the station bridge with the carriages lined up at the platform. Then came Osney Bridge and the view down the stretch of water. St Frideswide’s Church was duly designated by Edna as the ‘house of God’ and then they got up to make their way back to the stairs. They got off just past Haines’s fish shop, crossed the road, and were in front of the house, when Edna suddenly stopped, making Alex, whose hand she was holding, fall backwards against her. She had seen her husband in his best suit at the front window, holding back the net curtains, waiting for her and their child to come back. He looked pale and anxious. After seeing them, he clumsily left the window and went to open the front door.
    George was a few inches taller than Edna, and he put his arms right round her, reaching down to pat his son’s cap saying, in as firm a voice as he could manage,
    â€œIt’s gone, girl: direct hit on the back bedroom the night before last. Only the front room was still standing and there are a few bits of the furniture from there left; I got them taken to the firm’s depository. The only good thing was that you were both here and I was on nights. The Anderson shelter might have kept us safe, but there was nothing left of that place we made under the stairs as an indoor shelter.”
    They stood together on the doorstep for what seemed a very long time to Alex until a shared handkerchief wiped the