Christmas Wishes Read Online Free PDF Page A

thought it was that which made the day seem special. But as soon as he swung his legs out of bed he remembered. The twins were coming home at last, and how he wished he had his darling Bridget beside him, sharing his excitement at the thought of having their girls back with them again.
    When everyone had known that war was imminent, he and Bridget had talked of the evacuation and decided, though only after much heart-searching, that the twins must go with the rest of their classmates. ‘Look what the Huns did in Spain during the civil war,’ Alex had reminded his wife. ‘Bombing the big cities despite promises to do no such thing. Do you think they won’t do the same here? Air power will be the thing this time, not trench warfare, and the children will be a good deal safer in the country than living cheek by jowl with one of the biggest ports in England. Biddy, my love, I know you hate the thought of sending them away, but it’s for their own good – no, for their lives – and we mustn’t let sentiment cloud our judgement.’
    So Gillian and Joy, two little seven-year-olds, had been despatched in September ’39 to a small village in the heart of the Devonshire countryside, and with no children reliant upon her Bridget had looked round for war work, and found it. Alex was a fireman at the big fire station just up the road from their house, and as soon as it was known that women were being recruited to run the control room Bridget had volunteered and been taken on. Alex and the other firemen worked shifts – three days on, then three nights on, then three days off – and so did the staff in Control. Alex loved his work and talked about it constantly at home, so Bridget had had a head start over the other workers, and had soon become a valuable member of what Alex always referred to as his ‘family’.
    When the May blitz had started, the firemen had been on call constantly. Alex and Bridget had barely met for the best part of a week, and Alex knew that Bridget had followed his Watch’s call-outs in constant dread, for firemen were at the very forefront of the action. Shamingly, he thought now, it had never occurred to him that it might be Bridget who died, yet it had happened. The raid had been over, though the whole city had seemed to be ablaze, but when Alex had come off duty and made his way home it was to find Fred Brown, the Station Commander, awaiting him. ‘Your missus was caught by the blast as she left Control,’ the man had said roughly. ‘They’ve taken her to the Stanley. You’ll want to see her … I’ll come wi’ you, old feller.’
    ‘Is she much hurt?’ Alex had asked, his heart starting to beat overtime and a coldness invading his limbs. He had known the question to be a foolish one. The officer wouldn’t have waited for him if it had been anything trivial. ‘I’ll come at once, of course. Is – is she …’
    The man had taken his arm. ‘She’s gone, mate,’ he had said gently. ‘It was blast, so she looks peaceful; I reckon she didn’t know a thing.’
    The days that followed had been a nightmare and Alex’s only consolation had been to work even harder than he had done before. He had arranged the funeral for a day when the twins could be present but when he had seen them, two tiny figures in makeshift black, clutching their teacher’s hand whilst tears poured down their pale cheeks, he had regretted insisting that they come home. He had not wanted them to return to the house, even for a night, with all its memories of their mother and had accepted gratefully when his sister Serena and her husband had offered to take them in; two very subdued, sad little girls, strangely polite but anxious, Alex had realised, to escape from the terrible gloom which had enveloped, it had seemed, the whole of Liverpool.
    The girls had been in Devonshire ever since, and Alex hoped that it had been long enough for them to forget the misery which had surrounded that visit. He knew they were bound to