Meg picked up a pen –

1. Call Annie.
2. Call Annie!!
3. Tell Josh to bring milk.

The girl picked up her sandwich and took a bite, chewing carefully before she swallowed. She ate her way through two cheese sandwiches before tackling the soup, and then the sliced carrots and apple pieces. Even after it was all gone Meg could see her hunting the table for possible scraps.

“What’s your name honey?” Meg asked.

“I’m Libby,” she said. “You look like a movie star,” she added then ducked her head.

A bubble of laughter escaped Meg. “I do kind of look silly wearing this summer dress in the middle of winter,” she said.

“Oh no,” Libby cried. “I don’t think you’re silly at all. You’re beautiful and you smell nice.”

A wry smile twisted Meg’s mouth as she watched the grimy little creature in front of her. “What a lovely thing to say. But I honestly can’t say the same about you. When was the last time your mother gave you a bath?”

Libby’s bright blue eyes looked up into Meg’s. “I don’t got a mommy.”

“Okay…what about your father?”

“I don’t have a daddy neither. They’re both dead. And Mrs. Speck says I’m not allowed to have a bath. She says that me an Kyle can’t have baths cause we’re dirty heretics and deserve to look the same on the outside as we do on the inside.”

Meg looked at the troubled eyes under the greasy matted hair and felt as if someone had suddenly started a small fire right in the middle of her chest. “But…ah…why…who is Mrs. Speck?”

“She’s the lady in charge at the Home,” Libby said.

This is not happening, Meg thought. This is not happening. “So…um…why is it that she thinks you shouldn’t have a bath?” Meg asked, keeping her voice as light as she could.

Libby shifted her weight around and swung her legs back and forth in the chair. She licked one grimy finger and touched the crumbs on the plate then stuck it into her mouth. “Mrs. Speck says that Mommy and Daddy are dead because they wanted to be angels in heaven, but Kyle says that’s not really real, it’s just what adults say to kids. He says Mommy and Daddy wouldn’ta wanted to leave us even to be angels. And when she heard that, Mrs. Speck said children who don’t believe in angels are dirty, filthy heretics. What’s a heretic?” she asked.

“Just one sec Hon,” Meg said, she walked over to the counter and picked up her cell phone and flipped open the keypad.

Annie are you home? Can you get to my house ASAP?

Sure thing Meg. Something the matter?

Yes. Bring your jump kit okay.

“Do you think that your brother might want some lunch?” Meg asked Libby.

The little girl nodded her head vigorously. “He’s prob-ly starving too. We’re not allowed to eat at the Home until at the night-time.”

It took a little convincing to coax Kyle into the house for lunch. Meg had to promise him several times that he could finish the drive later and she would still give him the fifteen dollars. She laid the money on the table in front of him while he was wolfing down his food.

“Don’t eat so fast, you’ll choke,” Libby said to her brother and smiled up at Meg.

“So what’s so important about getting that money?” Meg asked.

With his mouth full of food Libby answered for him. “Kyled googlied the information at the library. He says that we can’t run away from the Home cause then the police will take us back. Then Mrs. Speck would be really mad and lock us in The Room. So Kyle says he’s gonna get money as a restrainer for a lawyer who can make her give us more food, or maybe even get us another place to live.”

The doorbell rang and Meg heard Annie walk into the porch. “In the kitchen,” she called. “That’s my friend Annie,” she explained to the two wide-eyed children at the table. She saw their shoulders relax, just a little.

Cold air followed Annie in, her plump red cheeks indicated that the weather hadn’t warmed up at all. Her grey curls had a sprinkling of white which began to melt in the warm room. Annie smiled wide and embraced Meg in a bear hug. “You’re too skinny,” she announced and then turned with a smile to the children. “And who have we here?”

With her years of experience behind her Annie quickly assessed the situation and soon had all the information she needed. “Well,” she said. “I think I have to go now,” she shot a knowing look at Meg. “I’m assuming you can handle this for the next couple of days,” she said and waggled her finger in a circle. Meg nodded then walked her to the door. “I’ve seen a lot worse,” Annie whispered into Meg’s ear. “Take care of them and I’ll take care of Mrs. Speck.”

Two hours later the children were napping on the large sofa in front of the fire-place while Meg was furiously scribbling out a list, it was already four pages long. She had changed into a comfy pair of jeans and pulled one of Josh’s old college sweatshirts on, and sat cross-legged in the middle of several thick books, their pages bristling with sticky notes. An envelope with fifteen dollars inside had the word “Retainer” written in the front, sat on top of some old legal briefs in her open case. Its leather still coated with a year’s worth of dust.

Meg looked up when the front door opened and watched her husband walk toward her carrying a carton of milk. “Who shoveled the driveway?” he asked.

Photo Credit

Photo from the Microsoft Office Clipart Collection

1. Drop off the dry cleaning.
2. Feed the fish.
3. Pick up milk.
4. Take antidepressants.

Today’s list only had one item on it –

1. Kill myself.

Meg was finished with lists. Which in Meg’s mind meant she was finished with life. Many days, and many lists had gone by for Meg to finally get to this point. In fact, for months now, she had had two lists on the go. The whiteboard list for everyone to see, and the secret list for her eyes only.

Whiteboard List

1. Take car in for oil change.
2. Ask Barb to clean the basement.
3. Pick up milk.
4. Mow the lawn.

Locked Drawer List

1. Update will.
2. Recheck points on fast acting poisons.
3. Pack away clothes, and mark boxes as “Goodwill”.

And now, after months of preparation she was ready. It was November 30th, D-Day, so to speak. It had to be today. Tomorrow was the beginning of December and she didn’t want Josh to think about December as anything but something to look forward to after she was gone.

He was still young. Young enough to find a new wife. To start a new family. Her heart skipped a beat when she thought about that. Her hands clenched and her step faltered and she looked down the hall at all the pictures still turned to the wall. She closed her eyes and took a steadying breath. Then another. A technique she had learned the first day in grief counselling class. A class she had quit only a day after she had started.

Ha! She didn’t need counselling on grief; she had buckets to spare.

Today she did not need the alarm to wake up. Her mind was as clear and crisp as a winter’s star filled night. Josh had been ecstatic when he rose to his favourite breakfast cooking and a fresh pot of coffee brewing. He had teased her and held her tight, kissing her on the neck until she giggled. A pang of guilt flashed through her as she remembered seeing his face relax. Although permanent lines now marred his brow.

“So did you reconsider?” he had asked. They had talked about her returning to work last night, and as usual she had been noncommittal and evasive.

As soon as he was out the door Meg pulled out her “floaty” floral summer dress and laid it on the bed. Then she ran herself a hot bath and sank into it with a sigh. She lay still listening to the chords of Bach playing somewhere in the background while floating in her cocoon of Epsom salts and rose scented water. Finally, sighing, she dried herself and dressed carefully. On a whim she decided to do her makeup, something she hadn’t done in over a year. When she was done she inspected her face in the mirror and was satisfied. She didn’t look broken.

On the table were two letters. The shortest was a one page note, addressed to Barb, her long time cleaning lady, instructing her to call the ambulance before calling Josh. The other was a hundred and fifty page letter addressed to him. She laughed at the thought; she had written a novella as a suicide note. She placed it on the mantel in the front room and then on another whim started a small fire to take the chill out of the air in the unused room.

Lunch, her final meal, would be a grilled cheese sandwich on rye and a bowl of tomato soup. Her favourite meal. Then it was just a matter of popping two small pills…

***

The doorbell jarred her from her reverie as she took the first bite of her sandwich. Who in the world could that be? She sat still, holding her breath. Just as she thought that the caller had gone the doorbell chimed again.

When she opened the door her hand flew to her chest, a small waif-like boy with large brown eyes stood on the stoop. He took a hesitant step backward when he looked up into her eyes. They stared at each other for a long time. Finally she shivered as a gust of icy air wrapped tendrils around her exposed skin in her barely there summer dress. “Can…can I help you?” she asked.

The boy ducked his head for a second, but just as she was about to ask him again he looked back up. “I was wondering if you wanted me to shovel your driveway?” he asked. She blinked at him. “For pay,” he said. “Not for free.”

“You’re awfully small to be shoveling driveways,” she said.

He pulled himself up to stand as tall as possible. “I can do it,” he said, his eyes sparking fire.

Meg looked out passed him to the drive. It was getting a little deep. And if Barb couldn’t get in…? “Okay,” she said. “How much?” She only had a few dollars in the house.

A big grin broke across his features. Suddenly he looked even younger and smaller than when she had first opened the door. “Is five dollars okay?”

“Five dollars seems kind of low,” she said. “How about fifteen?”

“Fifteen dollars,” he exclaimed. “You bet.” Then his face fell a little. “I was wondering,” he said, hesitating. “If it was okay if my sister waited in your porch. She’s kind of cold and little. She’ll be good.” He spoke hurriedly watching the emotions play across Meg’s face. That was when Meg noticed an even smaller body standing just behind the boy.

“She can’t wait in the porch,” Meg said.

His mouth turned down a bit. “That’s okay,” he said. “She can just walk around to keep warm.”

“What I meant,” Meg said. “Was that she can’t wait in the porch because it isn’t heated. She can come in the house and wait here.” Wait in the house? What the hell was she saying? She didn’t want a strange little girl in her house.

The boy grinned again. “She’ll be good,” he said. He turned to his sister. “You be good, and don’t do nothin. K?”

The little girl shook her head.

“Quick, inside,” Meg beckoned. “I’m freezing standing here.” She looked around at the empty street before closing the door.

As she walked into the house she thought –

1. Figure out what the hell I’m thinking.
2. Feed this poor kid something she looks half-starved.
3. Check to see if I have milk?

Photo Credit

Photo by Swiv On Flickr – Some Rights Reserved

David’s returning to rehab; he only has a two-day pass. And Mike, well, he’s just in a new relationship, and Cameron can’t handle funerals, or being by himself for very long. So with the boys gone it is up to Missy and Hannah to do the actual work. Things never change.

Neat mountains of crap still fill the basement and the second floor. The stairs groan every time one of the women makes the trip out with an armload of stuff. They had already spent hours moving the detritus of their father’s life from the main floor before the funeral. After all, it wouldn’t have been possible to have the wake, no matter how small and intimate, here in their father’s little bungalow.

Even now, six hours into the project, the walls seem to bulge with the effort of keeping the piles contained. A rented skip, almost the same size as the house, is already half full and they still haven’t even gotten half way through the master bedroom.

“Did you have any idea it was this bad?” Hannah asks her sister.

Missy looks around the room as if seeing it for the first time, then shakes her head. “With everything all bundled up and tied in neat little knots it sort of gave the hint of organization,” she says.

The bed squeaks as Hannah drops onto the edge. “I’m bushed,” she says. She tucks her bangs behind her ears and then rubs at the dark smudges under her eyes. “Let’s call it a night and then get a fresh start in the morning.”

Missy nods in a bobble-headed fashion, and mutters to herself. She plunks herself down beside her sister and sighs. “No one in town would blame us if we just torched the place.”

Hannah picks up a well thumbed book sitting on the night stand. It had been the last in a pile which she had gone through earlier. Most of that pile has gone into the recycle bin, but she knew that this one, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, had been her father’s favourite. She had been loath to throw it away with the others. It falls open to the place where the spine has cracked and a couple of yellowed pages slip out the bottom. “Another cheque?” she wonders. So far they have found ten uncashed pension cheques, along with a plethora of paper money – dollar bills, even ten dollars here and five dollars there.

When they had discovered that their father had hidden money everywhere it had slowed the process of sorting and discarding down to a crawl. The money kept piling up on the coffee table all day. The last time she added a twenty to the pile Hannah had counted over five hundred dollars in cash alone.

Hannah carefully opens the paper and begins to read. Missy reads over her shoulder. They both gasp at the same time. “Did…did you know that Dad was a fiction writer?” Missy stutters. They look at each other, eyes wide, mouths open. This isn’t fiction and they both know it.

January 21, 1965

Eyes green as moldy copper peer above a scarf wrapped tight against the bitter cold. I imagine tiny tear drops frozen to those long dark lashes as she blinks her eyes against the winter wind. She stands just outside a pool of light cast by the only dim street lamp still burning on this deserted lane, and waits for Karl’s approach.

Her boots squeal against the snow each time she shifts her weight. Deep moon-dust prints mark her passage down the road to this spot. The smallest breeze makes her squint her eyes. I imagine her looking through those frozen tears as if she is peering through a kaleidoscope which transforms the dim light into jagged rainbows that glint with a knife’s edge of colours. I can almost hear her sucking in a tiny breath as the dark night is transmuted into a beauty she otherwise would have missed.

Then she stiffens. A dim form, outlined in blues and purples, materialises from the deep shadows at the end of the street.

The approaching figure is shapeless and still shrouded in night’s cape, but she knows it is Karl by his limping gait. Silent as a wraith she moves even further back, away from the light which seems to have fused with the crusted snow. Now even the small puffs of her steamy breath are no longer visible.

I imagine her fingers icy and stiff. They no longer feel as if they belong to her hand. They do not feel as if they belong to her at all. It is better that way, I think. Because she knows that it will only take a thought to finish what Karl had started. The gun rests, and waits for that thought.

January 21, 1975

The girls were born six months after that bitter cold winter’s night. Some say that they do not resemble their father at all. Some would be wrong. They are the spitting image of him. But where he was large and ungainly, with a dragging limp and a scarred face, they are tall and willowy. Beautiful. They look like wood nymphs with their dark curls, luminous unblemished faces, and happy carefree laughter.

I buy them each a kaleidoscope for their tenth birthday, and watch with misty remembrances as they discover the beauty of the world of refracted colours.

Image Credit

“Design 1 (K_FUN #79)” by Gravityx9. www.flickr.com. Some rights reserved.

Aunt Dotty was bustling around the small cottage kitchen cutting squares for the children while Emma chatted about the drive up from the city. She was enjoying her first coffee of the day, but as she lifted the cup to her mouth her hand froze there as if trapped in amber. She was staring in horror as her uncle’s large hands with their arthritis-thickened joints rested lightly on her son’s shoulders. They were both leaning over a jigsaw puzzle and intently staring at the key.

Jagged, shattered, fragmented shards of memory swirled, and then coalesced in her mind. Those hands. Those hands close to her son’s throat.

~

All of a sudden she was 10 years old and crawling into a black locker that smelled of pitch and mold. She sat on a thick pile of coiled rope staring at her brother’s face which was partially hidden in shadow. “Just sit here and don’t say a word,” Eric whispered. The whites of his eyes glinted against his dusky face as his gaze flickered behind every few seconds. The look of fear on his face more convincing than his words. “Promise? Promise me you won’t say or do anything until I come for you?” When she nodded her head he hesitated for a second then closed the door.

The lattice screen was only inches from her face. She could see out, but no one could see her sitting there in the dark amongst the ropes, traps, and fishing tackle. Sometime later – she may have slept – a sound startled her. Jerking upright she watched her uncle and brother as they walked down the jetty toward the boat. The boat rocked a little as the boy stepped into the craft. It rocked quite a bit when the man did.

“You untie us,” her uncle’s gruff voice commanded. But as Eric moved toward the line, large hands fastened around the boy’s throat. Emma watched her brother’s eyes bulge as her uncle bore down with all his strength. Eric’s mouth gaped wide as he tried to drag air into his lungs. His hands, pathetically small against her uncle’s meaty grip, scrabbled ineffectually as he tried to free himself. Then as the boy’s grip fell away his body was hoisted into the air like a dangling fish flaccid and lifeless.
The only sounds were the heavy wheezes of the man and that of a fishing loon.

Emma sat motionless, unable to breathe, as if her uncle’s hands were around her throat as well. She watched him drop the inert body of the boy to the deck, her eyes glued to that motionless heap. She could feel the boat sway as her uncle walked to the stern of the small craft before yanking open the top of the long seat that ran across the back of the boat. Her eyes only turned to him when he grunted as he pulled a heavy, tarpaulin covered bundle from inside the bench. He took two steps to the gunnels before tipping it out of the vessel onto the weathered planks of the dock. It landed with a thump and a crinkle.

Emma watched as her uncle lifted the package over one shoulder then slowly strode toward shore. She waited for an eternity before creeping out of her hiding spot and rushing over to her brother’s still shape. She sat by his lifeless body for a long time, rocking and begging him to wake up. He never did. The sight of a bobbing lantern returning to the boat spurred Emma to leave Eric and scramble back into the dark locker.

Her uncle rolled Eric’s body into a small tarp before hoisting him over his shoulder like yesterday’s catch. Following him into the inky darkness she watched as he buried her brother in a lonesome hole beneath a large oak tree.

~

A frantic Aunt Dotty contacted the police when Eric still hadn’t returned the next night. A week later Emma’s broken childhood turned from nightmare to horror as each night her uncle’s heavy footsteps stopped in front of her door. “Go by. Go by. Go by,” she chanted. He never did.

Lying in bed the terrified little girl would feign sleep; the only sounds were that of clinking metal as he fumbled for his belt, and the echoes of birds calling to each other through the open windows.

~

The rattle of her vibrating pager brought Emma back to the present. The coffee cup shattered as it dropped from her nerveless fingers. Jumping to her feet she felt the rush of adrenaline in her veins as panic coiled in her gut. “Get your stuff. We’re leaving.”

Everyone looked startled at the wild expression in her eyes.

“But Mom, we just got here,” her daughter whined.

“Now!” she bellowed at the kids.

Sullenly both children obeyed at once. She followed them out to the car and gave a small sigh of relief when she slid in behind the wheel.

“Damn,” she said. “I forgot my keys.”

When she rushed back in through the door she could see the puzzled expressions on her aunt and uncle’s faces.

“What’s happened?” Aunt Dotty asked with concern.

Emma picked up her purse and keys, but when she lifted her head she saw her uncle staring at her. Hatred and rage poured from every fiber of her being. He staggered back two steps as the colour drained from his face. She saw his hands reaching for his throat just before she turned and ran for the door.

~

“Why are we stopping here?” Her son asked as they pulled into the brightly lit parking lot. The double doors of the police station were also brightly lit, and two cruisers sat parked next to the curb.

“Stay here,” she instructed. “I’ll be right back.”

Emma walked toward the doors, her footsteps accompanied by the buzzing hum of street lamps and the trilling call of mating birds in the distance.

Image Credit

Photo by Gab Halasz. All rights reserved.

It was the smells that I had come to dread most of all. In fact, the thought of the smells, and what they signified, amounted to a real fear. Even today, some odors still affect me and bring back frightening memories.

I had learned to handle a lot of the different noises. I had become used to a number of them and could even tell to some degree what they were caused by, and whereabouts they were. But the awful smells that a person had to encounter under a bombing siege were something that I dreaded most of all.

The thought of being killed was an element I had not pondered. I believed in the theory that “if the bomb had your number on it, you would cop it – no matter where.” I was however, truly afraid of being horribly maimed or losing a limb. I had seen injuries and heard the cries of so many people hurt in the unending raids that I knew it was far harder to live when terribly burnt or mutilated than it was to be killed outright.

I had witnessed members of families who had lost loved ones. Their suffering was of a different and agonizing kind.

This story is about a twenty-four hour period in my life during the bombing of London in World War II. I lived with my mother in the dockland area of East London and I was 14 years old at the time. My older sister was married and lived in North London. My brother was also married and served in the Royal Navy. He had evacuated his wife and baby son to Somerset some months previously.

At one time, there was nowhere in the world so heavily bombed as the dockland area of London. There were far more casualties there amongst the civilians than were in the entire armed forces. The Forces, unless they had duties in the London area, were forbidden to take their leave (or furlough) there because of the continuous danger of air raids.

The area in which I lived was known as “the docks.” It was the target for the heaviest bombing throughout the war. There were fire bombs, land-mines, oil bombs, pilot-less planes, rocket missiles and incendiary bombs. Long after the actual docks were completely destroyed and made utterly useless, the raids still continued on the residential districts for miles surrounding the dock area. This bombardment continued in an entirely indiscriminate manner for almost five years.

As I was really only a young kid, it would have been possible for my mother and I to evacuate to a safe place but she had the kind of grim determination that said, “No one will make me leave my home”. We suffered very much because of this decision – not only in terms of danger but also in lack of food, water and heating. I virtually had no friends near my age still living close to us. But I guess it was my mother’s kind of “grit” that made the whole nation bind together in their determination to win the war.

On the day I want to tell you about, my brother Bill had telephoned our home to say he was being sent on a four-day course to a ship located at the Victoria Embankment in London. H.M.S. Chrysanthemum was a ship that in peacetime was a showplace for tourists. It had been made over as a training ship for the Royal Navy soon after war was declared.

Bill had been given permission to sleep at our home and was phoning to tell us he would be staying for three nights. We had not seen him for about nine months so it was a very joyful occasion. However, we were concerned as to how we were going to provide the extra food needed for his breakfasts and suppers. I was very excited that I was going to see my big brother again and took great pains with my appearance. I remember dampening my hair (rolling it in pipe cleaners) so that it would produce a great amount of “frizz.” This, I considered, was very attractive. I chose to wear the only dress that still fitted me properly. One needed ration coupons for clothing and these were almost as precious as were the food coupons.

Most families in our area had air-raid shelters in their tiny gardens but we did not have one. To take cover during daylight raids, we would sit beneath the stairs. Night time raids forced us to get out of warm beds, place blankets under the dining room table and lie there in the hope it would provide some protection. Windows were always covered with “black-out” materials and sticky strips. These were to help prevent glass from flying about should the windows be blown out.

Bill drove up to our home on a naval motorcycle at about noon. He told us over lunch that his wife had asked him to go to their apartment in East Ham, about five miles away. She needed him to pack up and mail some extra clothing for her and their son. I badly wanted to have a ride on his motorcycle and so asked if I could accompany him. Bill explained that this was not allowed. He suggested I travel by tram and meet him at his home. He also asked me to break my journey on the way and go to “Boyd’s – The Piano People”. He needed me to pay a further installment on a piano he had been buying for some time. I agreed and said I would walk the remaining three or four blocks to his apartment which was in the upper part of a large house. It seemed like it would be fun to help him sort and pack the clothing.

I knew the piano shop very well, having gone there to make payments for Bill a number of times. I had only been in the shop for a few minutes when the air-raid sirens began to wail. The Manager immediately told customers and staff to go down into the basement cellar. I told him I would prefer to leave because my brother was waiting for me and I only had a short way to go. By now it was obvious that the warning had not been given early enough. We could already hear the drone of the approaching bombers and the “ack-ack” of the anti-aircraft guns. There was nothing I could do but take cover.

The cellar had been very well fortified with sandbags and the only window was boarded over. There was one naked light bulb to light the room. It was also evident from the blankets, books and knitting materials laying around that the staff had tried to make life down there as comfortable as possible on the numerous occasions they had needed to use it. I was also relieved to note there was a toilet next to the shelter, and that too had been well protected.

We sat under cover for almost two hours. Every time there was an extra heavy barrage outside, the staff would chat louder – as if this would help to screen their alarm. It was one of the worst bombardments we had endured for weeks. Finally, the sirens sounded the “All Clear” signal. I was one of the first out into the street and what met me there was shocking. Everything seemed to be ablaze. Firemen, policemen, air-raid wardens and ambulance workers were rushing about in a furious frenzy. All were grime-covered and many had soaking wet clothes. As the raids were so constant, I knew these people were continually on duty and never had time for rest.

Great plumes of black smoke billowed over the area. The smell of broken gas mains was alarming and I clutched my gas mask closer to me. It was forbidden to ever go out without carrying one. I dreaded the thought of having to use it sometime for the “proper thing” and had tried to dodge going to the gas mask practices whenever possible.

I started to pick my way towards my brother’s home. Broken glass and rubble was everywhere. Again, the smell of burning, wet wood and gas turned my stomach. Each time I tried to hurry, I was stopped by an official who told me, “It is impossible to get through this way….try going around such-and-such a street”.

After what seemed an age, I got to within a block of my destination. There were several army trucks positioned right across the road. It was impossible for anyone to enter. I asked a policeman if I could go through because my brother was waiting for me. He explained there was an un-exploded land mine hanging from a tree in a garden further down the road. The order was that no one would be allowed to go near until such time as it was either detonated or made inactive.

Peering through the dirt and smoke, I tried to see which house was the one to which they were referring. It was impossible to tell. I hung around as close to my brother’s road as permitted. Any time an official rushed past me, I inquired as to which house had the land-mine. Finally I was told, “Number thirty nine.” To my horror, I realized it was Bill’s home.

Knowing there was an air-raid shelter in his garden, I agonized as to whether or not Bill was sitting in it, perhaps unaware of the land mine hanging on the tree. I began to tremble and wondered whatever I would tell my mother. I knew his house had been empty for several months and that the shelter would not have been maintained properly.

The acrid smell of the smoke was nauseating. An ambulance man who was struggling to carry a stretcher told me to move away. It seemed there was a large earth removal truck being brought into the road to help dig for an entire family who were buried beneath a house there. So far, all attempts to free them had failed. I moved further away but as soon as the machine began to dig and I caught a whiff of the stench that came from the hole it made, I knew I had to leave.

I wondered how badly the raid had hit the part of London that my sister lived in. I decided to telephone her as soon as I could. I thought again of my mother alone all this time and I decided it was better if I returned to her. I knew she would be worried sick about me and my brother because she could probably tell in which area the bombs had dropped. One became accustomed to the scream of the bombs and able to judge, roughly, where they would land. Knowing there was nothing I could do to help Bill, I made my way to a telephone box to call my mother. I tried for a long time to get through to her and finally decided that the lines must all be down.

After making my way back to the main road for the tram ride home, I was relieved to see the trams were still running. When I boarded one, the driver refused my fare. He told me he could only take me part of the way because further down the road, the track had been bombed. As we rode along I could see nothing but utter chaos everywhere. Many buildings I knew well were completely missing – they were now just piles of steaming rubble. Some buildings were still ablaze. I was particularly upset to see Trinity Church also on fire. My parents had been married there. Firemen were still trying desperately to cope with the flames but lack of water defeated them.

I saw families dragging pieces of furniture and personal belongings from their homes – a hopeless attempt to save something. Outside some blitzed houses, there were the familiar tarpaulin-covered bodies. Ambulance drivers were striving to block hysterical family members who wanted to ride in the already over-crowded ambulances. They were told to make their own way to the hospitals to see their injured relatives. One woman was screaming, “Which hospital? Which hospital?”…..but I don’t think the driver even knew the answer to that question.

Foul air filled my lungs. Burning wet wood smelled like death. The bells and sirens of the various fire trucks, ambulances and bomb disposal squads were almost deafening. My head ached, I was hungry and cold. By this time it must have been around 7 p.m.

On leaving the tram, I made my way as quickly as possible towards my home. A number of times I was redirected on a much longer detour because some roads were completely impassable. By 8:30 p.m. it was getting dusk. This did not bother me as I only had about ten more minutes’ walk to reach home. I was very tired by now. Picking my way between holes in the pavement and piles of debris, I stumbled over a fire hose. The pain that shot through my ankle was almost unbearable. At first I thought I had broken a bone but on examining it, I decided it was a bad sprain. There was nothing I could do but go on.

As I turned a corner from the main road I saw a Women’s Voluntary Service Van standing a few feet away. I hobbled up to the lady on duty and offered her the 2 ½ pence I had saved on my tram fare. She took one look at my appearance and handed me a tea-bun, adding, “Go on Missy, that’s okay.” I thanked her gratefully and ate the bun so fast that I caused myself to have a pain in the chest. On leaving her van, she called after me asking what I had done to my ankle. Looking down, I saw with dismay that it was now very badly swollen and I wondered how much further I could manage to walk.

Much more slowly, I then proceeded to carefully make my way towards my home. Suddenly there was the sound of aircraft and almost at once the whole sky was lit up by flares dropped from the planes. The noise of the aircraft flying so low was terrorizing. I knew when planes came over, to light up a whole area, before the wave of bombers, that it was the forerunner of a very heavy air attack. I hopped along faster and as best I could, trying to ignore the pain in my foot.

My heart almost stood still as once again the sirens wailed their warning. Knowing how important it was to reach my road quickly, I hurried along and tried to keep out of sight. The last thing I wanted was to be placed in another shelter. I jumped out of my skin when an air-raid warden bellowed at me.

“Take cover! Take cover!” In my concentration not to stumble again, I had not seen him. Ignoring him, I limped my way onwards but he quickly overtook me. I can still remember his haggard face. His eyes were red rimmed and bloodshot. He quite likely had not had time to take his clothes off for days. We argued about my going on in the raid and I tried to explain why it was so necessary for me to continue. However, the “ack-ack” of the anti-aircraft guns made it almost impossible to communicate. In a momentary lull, the warden bawled at me that the bombers were almost overhead. He pushed me towards a building that I knew to be almost a shell of what had previously been a school. This building had received a direct hit some months before. Desperately, I pleaded with him not to make me go inside but he was adamant and he hustled me back the way I had so recently and painfully come.

We had hardly reached the shelter when the first stream of bombs started to shriek their way downwards. One, two, three, four – then a lull, and suddenly another one was on its way. I knew that the missing sound of an explosion meant another un-exploded bomb and how vicious and terrible they could be. The shelter was a very small one. It had obviously been part of a basement in the school. The sandbags smelled of damp canvas and some were burst. The wood used to shore up the walls stank as if they had already been in a grave. I knew I would hate it in there and wished miserably that I could have managed to take my chances outside.

When my eyes had become accustomed to the dim light, I saw to my disappointment that there were no amenities at all. It was cold and damp. Being the last person to enter the shelter, I was huddled between the warden and an old man. It was obvious he was employed at the Gas Works at Becton for his clothes reeked of gas. Older men had been pressured to return to work from which they had previously retired to replace the young men who had gone to the war.

The plain wooden bench on which we sat was very uncomfortable. I peered down the shelter to look at the other occupants. It seemed they used the shelter regularly because they had blankets and little packages of food with them. There were a mixture of ages, shapes and sizes as best as I could tell in the dim light. How I wished I had been allowed to run through the rain of shrapnel and flying glass rather than sit in this cramped, poorly equipped cover. Each time a bomb exploded a little too close for comfort I heard an Irish voice increase in volume another string of “Hail Mary’s.” I squinted to get a better look at a woman sitting quietly at the far end. She was a very weird shape. Her bust line was unusually large. Next to her sat a young man who shouted “there you go!” every time the shelter was violently shaken. After some hours of this I felt I wanted to strangle him!

Some time later, there was a quiet spell in the pandemonium outside. Everyone started to speculate on what was happening. The “ack-ack” of the anti-aircraft guns had also ceased yet it was still possible to hear the drone of the planes. Every so often there was a kind of swishing noise followed by a small thud.

After the disturbing quiet had lasted for awhile, the air-raid warden stood up, rubbed his stiff legs and went outside. He might have been checking on what was happening there but on the other hand, I knew that men sometimes slipped out for a moment to relieve themselves. “Lucky thing!” I thought. A few minutes later he returned. We all waited expectantly to hear what he had to tell us.

“It’s hell out there,” he said. “Whole world seems to be on fire. They’re using a new kind of fire bomb. It’s called an incendiary and they are coming down in thousands!”

We continued to wait in the dank shelter in a numbed, miserable silence. My thoughts returned again and again to my family. I wondered how my sister was faring in her area of London. She had already been bombed out once from her home and was still mourning the loss of her beloved cat. What agonies of mind must my mother be suffering on her own? I tried not to think of whether she might be injured or killed. In my heart I truly believed we would survive this dreadful time. It was these thoughts that helped me to get through that night.

The hours dragged on and on and I dozed from time to time. In one quiet period, a tired, dirt-covered policeman entered the shelter. His tin hat had a large dent in it and his gas mask case was broken. He had come in to count how many people were sheltering there. The warden gave him a drink of water from a flask. I asked him the time. It was almost 4 o’clock a.m.

As we continued to wait, thoughts still flew around in my head. Was my brother safe from the hanging land mine? Was my own home intact? How about my cat Tim? He had a way of sensing trouble and would vanish long before the alarms sounded. Was my sister at home or at work? It did make a difference. I imagined my mother lying alone on the floor beneath the table listening to the world shattering around her.

I dozed again and a sudden increase in the bombardment above woke me in alarm. On opening my eyes I saw two tiny lights shining across the shelter from me. “Oh God!” I thought. “It’s a rat!” My heart thumped in my throat and the constrictive feeling made me feel faint. I tried to breathe deeply. I was far more frightened that a rat was among us than I was of the havoc outside. The woman opposite me moved her head slightly and I saw the dim light shine on her spectacles. I knew then that my imagination had tricked me.

After a while I dozed some more and must have leaned against the man next to me. As I gradually awoke I became acutely aware of the sour, pungent smell of stale cigarette smoke on his clothes. This made me more conscious of the closeness and dank odor in the air. I longed even more for the “All Clear” to sound.

It was around 5:30 a.m. when there began a particularly ear splitting and furious bombardment of guns and exploding bombs. This caused everyone in the shelter to start talking hurriedly and excitedly. It was almost as if we were trying to put a protective shell around us. A small pale man sitting opposite me began to explain in much detail how his neighbours had been burned to death in their home. Apparently an oil bomb had landed in their garden. On exploding, the fire had run directly into their house. “They didn’t stand a chance,” he said, adding, “even if they had been in their garden shelter it would have got them.” This story led to other persons telling equally gruesome accounts of what had happened to their families and friends.

One woman said that after one very bad night of intense bombing, she and her family had decided to travel up to the centre of London to look for shelter and a place to sleep on one of the underground station platforms, as many thousands of bombed-out people had to do. “What was it like?” asked a voice from the far end of the gloomy room. “Orrible!” the Cockney voice replied. “Ain’t goin’ agin – take our chance ‘ere. At least we can soon git ‘ome and see if there’s anyfin’ standin’.” She said this in an almost joking tone. I felt it was to cover her feelings.

I asked again, “What is the time?” and was told about 6:30 a.m. My legs were numb with cold and the hours of sitting on the hard wooden bench. I longed to stretch but there was not enough room.

Without the screaming warning of a falling bomb, the shelter suddenly seemed to quake. We felt as if we had been lifted upwards and then violently dumped down again. We had all automatically ducked towards the floor. “My Gawd”, said a different Cockney voice nearby. “That was bleedin’ near!” The noise and sensation of movement was something unfathomable. The air became thick with dirt and smoke. Everyone coughed a lot and tried to clear their throats. My ear drums felt as if they would burst and my chest seemed to be pressed by a heavy weight. The shelter suddenly seemed to be a lot colder. Whatever it was that had exploded was obviously very close, if not right on top of us.

By the time the air had cleared a bit we found that the tiny light we had sat under for so many hours was shattered. The utter blackness was terrifying. Each time I felt someone move near to me, I froze. We sat in a very uneasy silence, broken only by a voice trying to pray and someone quietly crying.

A new wave of bombers passed over and again we counted the bombs as they fell. “For God’s sake, how much longer?” enquired a voice in the sooty gloom. The nerves in my teeth jumped every time an explosion boomed. The pain was agonizing and frightening. I prayed that it would stop for I had fears of becoming entirely toothless if it didn’t!

I could hear that the woman opposite me was making unusual sounds. I couldn’t determine what was happening to her. Gradually I became aware that the man next to me was very silent. The air was fetid. I listened to some poor soul retching in the darkness and dreaded the thought we might have to sit near a pool of vomit for some time. We sat on and on in the total darkness. I had a lump in my throat and began to feel panicky. The waiting seemed like an eternity.

Some time later, we heard the “All Clear” sounding. A cheer of relief went up from us all. We heard the warden rise from his seat and feel his way in the darkness. “I’ll soon have us out of here”, he said. He started pulling the sacking covers away from the metal door of the shelter. His breathing was loud as he strained to open it. He tried over and over again but it would not budge. We all sat listening intently in the darkness until at last he exclaimed, “Christ! It won’t move!” Another man clambered over feet and knees in an attempt to help the warden. The door refused to move and quickly there was a feeling of panic in the shelter.

My breathing seemed to be affected and I really thought I was going to die. The warden quickly took charge of the situation. He shouted over the noise of the voices asking questions and he convinced us that very soon there would be rescuers to get us out. The woman sitting across from me finally spoke up about her problem. Apparently she had a very violent nose bleed a while before and she was, by her description, “entirely covered in blood”.

I told the warden that I could no longer feel the man next to me. We all scrambled about on the floor feeling with our hands and after a minute or two we located him. The warden had a small flashlight and we saw the man was unconscious and had a very large gash beneath his right ear. It appeared that a piece of shattered wood, blown from a wooden bean, had entered his head when the ‘hit’ had partly collapsed the shelter. There was nothing we could do in the darkness to help him except that the warden took the man into his arms to help keep him warm. We placed his legs and feet across our laps and tried to rub them in an attempt to keep his circulation going.

An old man’s weak voice asked if we wanted to sing. No one answered him. I guess that everyone’s throats were as parched as mine. The Irish voice still droned on in fervent prayer. After a while, we heard sounds above us. Voices shouted to ask if anyone was injured. We shrieked back in chorus, “Yes, get us out!” Much noise went on above us. A thumping and banging sound made me think there was a truck moving back and forth. I wanted, above all, for the light to come on. I felt that if only I could see and there was some amount of light, everything would be okay.

As we waited, I thought about what would happen to my family without me. Thankfully I took comfort from the fact that there were people outside who were aware of our imprisonment. We all knew they would never stop in their labours to release us. My mind seemed to wander. I almost felt like laughing. I thought, “What a funny situation!” I wrote in my mind’s eye glowing epitaphs about myself. These, of course, would be printed after my removal from the “bowels of the earth.” This was a line I was sure I had read in the Bible. Thoughts of my mother again soon sobered me. The feeling of being outside of myself and looking in, had vanished. I was very conscious of being extremely cold and hungry and that my ankle and teeth hurt badly.

I bent over to feel if the swelling in my ankle had gone down at all. To my horror I realized there was about three inches of water around my feet. Someone else discovered this at the same time and shouted, “Water’s coming in!” Alarmed voiced queried, “How?” and “Where?” The warden sensed this was a situation that could get out of control. He bawled above the uproar, “I guess it’s a broken water main. Don’t worry. The rescue squad knows we’re here. They’ll have us out in no time.” I felt the bitter taste of bile rise in my mouth. I fought the feeling of wanting to vomit and bit my lips until I realized I could taste blood.

Anxious mutterings and questions broke the intense concentration of everyone in that underground prison. We waited in huddled misery and listened to the hurried labours of our rescuers. Slowly the water continued to trickle in. It crept higher and higher as the moments dragged by. I couldn’t stop myself from continually putting my hand down to see how quickly it was rising. It was now up to my mid-calf and my frozen feet felt as if they did not belong to me.

It was comforting to listen to the shouted orders and banging going on over us. However, with each thrust of their tools, more of the shelter and debris collapsed around us. Breathing became more difficult as the dirty atmosphere choked us. But we remained hopeful. We knew that they, whoever “they” were, toiling away above us, would never give in until we were reached.

The water rose higher. There was continuous coughing. We realized that with each effort to help us the shelter disintegrated more and more, causing extra danger every minute. The water level was now near our knees and it was terribly cold. I felt light headed and thought, “It’s alright, I can swim.” And then reality dawned on me – there was nowhere to swim. Resignation was very close to hand. My head throbbed violently and my ears felt as if they were on fire. I began to feel that it didn’t matter if I ever got out. All I wanted to do was sleep.

There was a deafening noise above and unexpectedly a sudden rush of air and light. Pieces of broken wood and debris fell with a loud splash into the water around us. I peered towards the light, unable to see. Very firm hands grabbed me and I was hauled unceremoniously upwards. The cold air hit my face like a whip. I couldn’t open my eyes as it was too bright. I could still hear the shovels and other tools striking the metal cover of the shelter. The voices were warm and assuring as the rescue party encouraged those who waited below.

Being almost the last person to enter the shelter, I was one of the first to come out. The warden followed with the unconscious man. He looked terrible. A fireman with a black-streaked face and sore, red eyes pulled me through the soil and rubble. His mouth had caked crescents of dirt around it. I just stared at him, unable to move on my own. He quickly handed me over to a waiting ambulance man. Although he looked completely exhausted, he had to almost carry me away from the now rapidly collapsing shelter. I could only stumble as my feet and legs were numb. He asked me if I needed a stretcher and I told him no.

As we moved away from the digging party, I heard voices saying things like, “It’s a miracle they got out!” and, “That was a close shave!” I turned to see how the others were faring just as the woman with the huge bosom was pulled from the hole. As she was released, a large, terrified tabby cat sprang from inside her coat. The woman screamed, “Don’t let him go, don’t let him go. He’s all I’ve got now!” Willing hands grabbed towards the cat but he was already gone. I felt as if I was apart from all that I was looking at. It did not seem to be real. But the smells were very real. Dried blood, sweat, urine, burning flesh, dampness – they were too real not to believe. Once again I felt the bile burning in my throat and I thought I would be sick. But nothing came.

The ambulance man asked if I was injured. I told him I was fine and then felt completely surprised at my reply. He quickly ran his hands over me and when he saw my ankle, he told me to get off it as soon as possible. I stared at him in a detached manner and far in the back of my mind I thought, “He looks dreadful – as if he has been going for a hundred years.” I sensed he wanted to get back to the other so I thanked him and again said I was okay.

A policeman approached me and wanted my name and address. He was trying to account for the number of people who had been in the shelter. He then asked if I could get home on my own. I told him I could manage and did not have far to go. He looked relieved and advised me to start as soon as I was able. Smiling, he added, “I don’t suppose you’ll be able to have a hot bath dearie. The water mains were all blown up yesterday.”

“Yesterday?” I thought. “What a funny word! When was yesterday?” It seemed like eons ago. My only thought now was to get back to my mother. Shakily, I picked my way across the mess. It was a very slow and painful process. My shoes were covered with mud and slime. I could feel water squeezing between my toes each time I took a step. My dress clung wetly to my legs and felt very uncomfortable. I knew I looked awful. My hair was covered in dirt and hung in long, straight lumps. I hoped I could reach home without being made to take any more detours.

After a dozen or so steps I realized there was a middle aged woman standing in front of me. She was holding a large enamel cup of hot tea. Without a word she thrust it into my frozen hand and waited for me to drink it. The sudden heat of the cup in my hand acted like an electric shock. I stared with terrified eyes into her face as I felt the hot urine running down the insides of my thighs. Her eyes travelled to my feet and the steaming puddle around them. She gently took the cup from my hand and said, “Oh Gawd! You poor little sod!” This sympathy was more than I could bare and a dry sound, something like a gunshot came from my parched throat. She put a comforting arm around my shoulders and said in her Cockney twang, “Cummin dearie, I’ll fix yer up”.

We proceeded very slowly past houses entirely devoid of windows. Some had no roofs. Rubble, hoses, wood, bricks and pools of water were everywhere. I asked if she knew if the road I lived on had been hit. She replied she was not sure but that she felt it was alright. When we finally reached her house, I saw that it was nothing more than a shell of its former self. Part of the roof was intact and the rest covered by a tarpaulin. None of the windows remained but they had been boarded up with slats of broken wood. She took me through the house into the garden where there was an outside toilet. Placing me on the toilet seat, she left me sitting there with the door open. Returning with a towel, she explained she was unable to wet it as there was no water but she had moistened it with some tea from her flask. I cleaned my face and legs as bet I could but I knew that I must have looked a pretty awful sight.

Having drunk the tea, I thanked her gratefully and started on my way again. What was I to find? I had been away from my home for almost twenty four hours. I imagined the anxiety my mother had gone through worrying about her children. I wondered if my sister was safe in her part of London. Above all, what was I to tell my mother about Bill?

As I turned out of the road of the woman who had helped me so kindly, I looked back and saw she was once again carrying her flask and cup – going out again to nurture some other unknown soul with her own precious ration of tea. I wished fiercely that such a brave person might be spared further torments of uncalled-for hostilities. I recalled her high-pitched Cockney whine and my answering “Ta”, unconsciously in her own kind, to thank her for her generosity.

At last I arrived at my own street. What had been a green-grocer’s shop on the corner was now only a steaming crater. A neighbour I knew well was standing as if rooted to the spot, staring blankly at the rubble. I asked him if the family who lived over the shop was alright. He lifted his shoulders, unable to answer me. His grey face quivered and I knew what his silence meant.

With my shoulders heaving, I stumbled on down my street. It was difficult to see through the smoke and grit. Carefully picking my way between piles of someone’s roof tiles and glass, I could see my own home and it appeared to be stable. I hobbled along, feeling very apprehensive and frightened at what I might find. It was almost as if in a dream that I noticed the Victoria gates and fences that had been the decoration outside the homes had all gone. I stared at the black stubbles of iron left in the concrete and then remembered that they had been taken away for making munitions a long while ago.

At last I was in front of my own home. With my heart in my mouth, I saw that the windows had been blown out and a number of roof tiles were strewn around the front of the house. There was no sign that anyone had tried to cover the gaping holes in the window frames. Again, I felt that tight restriction in my throat as I wondered what had happened to my mother.

What would she say when she saw me? I looked filthy and exhausted. I attempted to brush some of the grime from my dress. I was surprised to see streaks of blood all over the skirt. With shaking hands I feebly tried to brush my hair back from my face but I knew my efforts were worthless. My head ached and it seemed that my brain was nothing more than a blank weight in my head. The pain in my foot made it hard for me to concentrate.

My mother had never been a demonstrative person. I think life had dealt too many unfair blows for her to completely let her guard down. I did not expect her to shriek in delight at my safe homecoming. But I longed that, just once, she would put her arms around me and say, “Thank God, you are safe.”

I stared at our front door as if willing it to open. I leaned against the porch to ease the pain in my ankle. Finally, I decided that if I knocked on the door in my usual manner, she would realize I was alright.

It seemed an eternity before I heard the latch turn. The door opened only slightly and finally, my mother stood there. Silver curls lay on her forehead. The rest of her silver and red-gold hair hung down her back in complete disarray. I had never seen her look like that before. I felt as if I were staring at someone I did not know.

There was complete silence between us and I squirmed in anguish on my one good foot. I asked, “Mum, are you alright?” She did not answer. I stared at her feet and saw to my relief that my cat was brushing against her shins. Through his coat of fur, I could see the sores that were the sign of the malnutrition he suffered. We had tried so hard to keep him fit but it was impossible with the food that we could offer.

Again, I looked into my mother’s face. It was like a piece of grey marble. Her eyes seemed to be staring right behind me. Panic filled me and I was startled to feel a sense of guilt flood through me. Did she have news of Bill that I did not know? I thought again of the hell she must have suffered and I repeated, “Mum?” There was still no movement from her. Hurriedly I rushed on to explain how I had tried to telephone her but that the lines were all down. She still did not move. “I really did try,” I said weakly.

Unable to bear the silence any longer and filled with terror at what her news might be, I asked again. “Mum? Is Bill…..?” Her eyes moved slightly to just above my head. They reminded me of two pieces of grey stone. My ankle was aching so badly that I had to lean against the doorway. The pain was making me feel faint again. Once more, I burst out, “Mum? Are you…..?” The blank eyes turned to look straight at me and she made a small movement behind the door. As she turned back and walked down the passageway all I heard her say as I entered the house was “Come in”.

~ The End ~

Photo Credits

Firemen – Public Domain

Thumbnail Dornier 17 Bomber – Creative Commons

London Blitz – Public Domain

Dornier 17 Bombers Over London – Public Domain

Blitz Bomb Damage – Creative Commons

Blitz Fire – Public Domain

Guest Author Bio

Mary Piggott
Mary was born in London, England, the youngest of four children. Her Mother was widowed when Mary was only one year old. This led to her Mother working long, hard hours at whatever she had the opportunity to do. A lifetime of “making do” and scraping was the only life the family knew and this also resulted in each child having to leave school early to find work. Mary always had the ambition to travel and has visited over fifty countries. In 1967 Mary and her husband Colin immigrated to Canada with their little daughter. Mary is a talented artist who enjoys painting, writing and the challenge of crossword puzzles.

Catchphrases from TV sitcoms have become such common currency that British English is in danger of becoming a totally separate language from Canadian English. If anyone in Britain asks you,

The Mclean catchphrase “A Cunning Plan” came from the Blackadder series, with Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry as incompetent officers and Tony Richardson as the simple soldier Baldrick, who always had a cunning plan to rescue the army in 1914. A “Cunning Plan” is always destined to fail but only after tremendous effort and time have been lavished on it by the incompetents who conceived it.

One of Ted’s colleagues had bet him that grouse couldn’t be raised in Normandy. Why not? People were starting to raise quail and wild boar and salmon. It was time for a “Cunning Plan”. Another of life’s challenges! Pourquoi pas?

We found out that a British government environmental research project, studying life styles of capercaillie and grouse, conditions for reproduction and possible combination feeds of grit and grains, was being conducted up near Aberdeen. We contacted the boffins. They offered to reserve us some fertilized grouse eggs, telling us to bring a big Thermos lined with peat to transport them. We had to prop this up in the car in such a way that we could turn the eggs every few hours.

Before speeding off to Scotland in the company Mercedes, Ted spent hours planning and building a bird cage/hen house, more of a Lord Snowden type aviary really, attached to our garden shed. On the instructions of various hen-raising locals, he completed the interior with little triangular hatching huts which just fit neatly over broody hens and eggs.

We drove all the way up to Aberdeen and all the way back to Normandy in great haste and excitement. Ted had to rush back to work while I negotiated with a neighbour, Mr Capon, to lend me a couple of broody hens. I transferred the little eggs carefully into the hatching huts, plopped the hens over the eggs and left them to it. They could just get their heads out to the little feed bowls nailed on the front. I failed to notice ominous cracking sounds as I backed away.

A couple of days later, I went out to see if any progress was being made. The broody hens were definitely looking defeated. I picked up the hutches and the broody hens staggered forth, feet covered with raw grouse egg omelette. Apparently, I should have used Bantam hens that, as every boxing fan knows, are considerably smaller and lighter than the Rocky Balboas I had landed on the eggs.

I managed to rescue some of the eggs which had simply been buried under the earth by the weight of the hens. I raced over to return the heavy-weight hens to the Capons. Mrs.Capon, covered her mouth and giggled and Mr Capon, controlling his spittled mirth, just shrugged his solid shoulders at the waywardness of nature and the stupidity of townies everywhere.

He suggested I buy an electrically controlled hatching box which turns the eggs every so often and controls the level of humidity. I rang around farm supply shops.

“Yes, Ma’am, we have one of those. How many hundreds of eggs do you have to hatch?” When I admitted I only had a dozen or so the salesman stifled a laugh and recommended another shop. It all got set up eventually and I waited hopefully. After week or so, I realized our “Cunning Plan” had come unstuck. I finally broke open the eggs which were black and stinking inside, having never ever been fertilized.

Brambles branch up and over the coop, weeds invade the inside and the hatching huts fall apart and I just haven’t the heart to start again. Well, as Robbie Burns said, ‘The best laid schemes of mice and men gang aft a-gley.”

Obviously, this time next year we are not going to be millionaires! Time for another “Cunning Plan”!

Photo Credits

All photos by Julia McLean

Ladies and gentlemen, it is a pleasure to introduce most scrumptious woman ever, the Petite Powerhouse — MISS ROSIE BITTS!

There are few people these days whom you could truly call charming. But charming is a word that fits Miss Rosie Bitts to a “t”, from her effervescent giggle to her Jackie O shades to her sense of humour and smarts.

This “starlet” from Vancouver Island took to the burlesque stage only three years ago and has already been named a “Notable Woman” by the National Post. She has a dazzling burlesque solo career, teaches burlesque and “pin-up” classes, and she even started her own production company, Best Bitts Productions.

In her clicky high heels, Rosie taps across the floor at the Superior restaurant in Victoria, her round little bum wiggling in a 1940-esque turquoise dress with a slit up to here. She tosses her long, blonde mane, positively oozing sex appeal.

My gosh, and it isn’t even martini hour yet. But that’s the real beauty of hanging out with this rising burlesque starlet — wherever she goes, whatever time it is, it’s happy hour…and I’m not talking about booze.

Miss Rosie Bitts has the kind of sweet, cheeky, sexy charisma that is equally appealing to men and women, gay and straight – and she makes you smile. But isn’t that what burlesque is: blending humor and sexiness into a a true art form that is currently enjoying a welcome resurgence.

And I’ll tell you the most delicious thing about Miss Rosie Bitts and it’s not even the reveal, which she does very nicely, thank you very much. Miss Rosie Bitts is the real thing — authentic. And that’s not easy to find in showbiz or anywhere else. So here’s what we talked about…

Kerry: How do you choose a stage name for burlesque? Are there rules?

Rosie: Hmmm, there are no rules. It’s really a labour of love. Some people mix words together, like your favourite alcohol drink and favourite sparkly thing…I didn’t begin with Rosie Bitts — she just arrived as my character started to grow. There a [burlesque] legend named Satan’s Angel and she didn’t like what she called all the “shit names” but she liked Rosie Bitts. You have to think about your name and be sure you are willing to live with it.

Kerry: How is Rosie different from your off-stage personality?

Rosie: She is much more ballsy! Slightly raucous. I would never spend as much time on hair and make-up for myself…Now I feel like it’s a responsibility to leave the house glamorous.

Kerry: What are the burlesque essentials in your closet?

Rosie: Only two things — false eyelashes and lipstick.

Kerry: If you could come back in another life, who would you want to be?

Rosie: I’m having an awfully good time as myself. I often say I’m living the best life ever.

Kerry: Pasties or pastries? What do you like more?

Rosie: Actually, I have a gluten allergy so it would have to be pasties! But I do love to eat.

Kerry: What’s the biggest myth about burlesque artists?

Rosie: The biggest myth is that we are both similar to strippers AND that we are not [similar to strippers]….We’re doing what I call an art form that many women were actually beaten for doing and arrested for doing in the past — taking off their clothes. I’m connected with a lot of the legends [of burlesque] and I consider them my foremothers. They were wild women who decided not to compromise. A lot of them were ‘out lesbians’ which wasn’t common at the time. They were unapologetic about making money with their bodies. Some of them would do 45 minute shows…and hold an audience of men and women. There’s a saying in burlesque that if the men were excited it was a good night, but if the women were excited [the burlesque dancers] were really happy.

Do you get more men or more women hitting on you since you began burlesque?

Rosie: Well, let me see, I’d have to say more women but the biggest growing group of fans is males 18-24. For some reason they seem to be interested in older women.Maybe it’s a reaction against all the nudity and sexuality in our society, and the fact that they were used to certain types of girls and body tupes, but to see a woman with a more natural body, hmmm. But I’d say my prime groupies are lesbians.

What would the movie of your life so far be called?

Rosie: I’d steal the title from Marlene Dietrich’s I Wish You Love because love is always the basics I go back to and what I bring to everyone I entertain.

Kerry: To which female celebrity would you love to teach burlesque?

Rosie: Ellen Page. She’s, like, the cutest little thing ever.

What about a male celebrity?

Rosie: Adrian Brody.

Kerry: Who is your favourite fictional heroine?

Rosie: My favourite female character (for this moment) is Hine from the short
story “Skin and Bones”  in Once Upon a Time in Aotearoa by Tina Makereti.
It is the retelling of a classic “Creation” story and Hine has only a few
lines in the whole story but she won my heart by her reply to her
“creator” (a man):
“I’m Hine,” she said. “I’m so glad you figured it out. I’ve been waiting for ages.”
He was stunned.
“Aw, look at you,” she said, “you’re all skin and bones. Let’s make a feast. Time for a celebration, don’t you think?”

For some reason that little bit of dialogue just rings so true to me. Such a womanly thing to say and a beautiful, subtle way to show her
equality-she was always there-just waiting to be discovered/created in the physical form.

Kerry: Who is your favourite burlesque artist?

Rosie: There are so many wonderful ones. I love Immodesty Blaize out of the U.K. Oh, and Tigger! the most lovely human being…

Kerry: What’s the hardest burlesque move to master without pulling a muscle?

Rosie: It’s not just a burlesque move but I’d say the Sidesplit in a Tango Fan dance. And backwards tassel twirls can be very touchy.

Kerry: Are you salty or sweet?

Rosie: Sweet. Hmmm. Or kinda sweet with a salty hint. I’m a broad!

Kerry: Do you remember your first time on stage as a burlesque artist?

Rosie: The first time I was on stage I wasn’t yet Miss Rosie Bitts. And it was terrifying! I felt like I had been broken in half, but in the end it was absolutely the right thing for me to do. I’m a professional actor and I learned that if you have that feeling — like being broken in half — it’s good. It’s really good. And it’s gratifying to see that people actually want to see you.

Kerry: What interests you most about life as a human?

Rosie: I’m so happy to wake up every day and be alive here, every day. I am so excited about just being here.

Miss Rosie Bitts will be performing at benefits for the Dirty Wall  Project on September 19 in Victoria, BC and September 12 in Nanaimo. Stay tuned for more info.

Photo Credits

Photos 1, 2, by Ailsa Dyson www.ailsadyson.com,

Photo 5 (feature photo) by Que Banh www.thephotographyelf.wordpress.com

One of the most gregarious and popular men in town, my father—his knuckles tattooed with the letters L-O-V-E and his biceps and forearms with snakes and anchors—worked hard, played hard and drank hard.

My mother was a woman’s woman, a housewife by trade and a loyal friend and mother by reputation. For the first years of my life, she had no running water. We used the outhouse and bathed at the kitchen sink in water heated on the woodstove. She washed clothes in a ringer washer and dried them into frozen boards on the clothesline out back. Her friends were always coming around, sharing a cigarette and gossip over tea.

She and my father hosted card parties and hung out to smoke and drink with their friends. Both my sister and I did well in school, in large part because of my mother. Unlike my father, who dropped out early, she took school seriously and insisted we do well.

So, what were my parents doing at Christmas, running around the neighbourhood in each other’s clothes?

The memory of my father dressed in my mother’s clothes and my mother dressed in my father’s clothes — both of them with a flash on from the rum they’d been drinking—struck me in adulthood as curiously out of place. It didn’t seem to fit with our hardscrabble life or even with their personalities. We didn’t go to church, but as far as I knew, it had nothing to do with any strange religious rites.

That’s why I got to wondering, well, what’s this all about and did other people do it and where did it come from? Why would a father like that put on a woman’s dress? Why would my mother get into dad’s workpants and doeskin shirt and rubber boots? They’d stuff their clothes with cushions from the couch and wear underwear over the whole getup. They’d hide their faces by pulling a pillowcase with eyeholes over their heads. They might even wear boots on their hands or mittens on their feet.

Sandying. That’s what they called it when they got dressed up and went out at Christmas like that, but most people would call what my parents did “mummering.” The custom goes by various names around Atlantic Canada: Santa-ing, Santa Clausing, Kris Krinkling, jannying, belsnicking. While “belsnicking” arrived with German immigrants, most of the other names refer to a custom that has its roots in Medieval England.

Some folklorists consider sandying and all its variations a surviving pagan custom, but others believe it has no religious connections at all. It’s just something people did for centuries. One thing for sure, my parents had no idea why they went sandying except that it was a fun thing you did at Christmas.

This is how it would go. They’d manage to get themselves up to the kitchen door of a neighbour’s house without too much racket. They’d knock. Nobody knocked at doors in those days, but my mom and dad knocked. The whole point was to stump the hosts… sort of. They would knock and stay mum when the neighbours opened the door and started guessing who they might be. If they guessed right, they’d invite Mom and Dad in for drinks and laughs. If they couldn’t guess, they’d invite Mom and Dad in for drinks and laughs anyway.

Once inside, I can only imagine what went on. Well, I can do better than imagine. I can make an educated guess because sandyers came to our house too on nights my mother and father stayed home. In would come the strangers who you knew very well were friends or family. Then “the foolishness,” as my grandfather called anything like this, would start. After taking a nip from a bottle, a visitor would grab my mother and dance around the kitchen or sit on my father’s lap and flirt with him until finally someone guessed right or tear off a pillowcase for the big reveal. Then they’d tell stories about the dressing up and the visits to other houses and drink some more. Sometimes, they’d sing songs at the tops of their lungs.

I don’t go sandying. This was less than 40 years ago, but nobody I know goes sandying. Everything I know about it came from memories and talks with my mother. Nobody ever talked about it at school. It never appeared in books. Sandying seemed to exist nowhere but in my parents’ imaginations. It was as if they made the whole thing up. And yet there was something about it that seemed far bigger than them as if they had no control over what they were doing, as if it were instinctual or as we might say today, genetic.

Of course, it wasn’t genetic. It was cultural. And the culture of the world I live in now is not the world I grew up in. I get my water from a tap. I bath in the bathroom. I surf the internet and watch 500 channels of television. I don’t make my own entertainment as often as my parents did.

Some things haven’t changed, and you’d think there might yet be a place for sandying. There’s still all that lead up at Christmas followed by the long coast through New Years. Christmas is still the darkest time of the year.

The nights, even the holiday itself, are still too long to know what to do with. Sandying might still work as comic relief to the seriousness and soberness of the Christian holiday, to the burden we carry around in Christian cultures of the birth of Jesus and the eventual forgiveness of carnal sins like, well, drinking.

If I had to give one reason why I don’t go sandying like my parents did, I’d blame the news. Children are abducted and murdered, gangs catch bystanders in their crossfire, innocent people are blown up and it’s as if it’s happening in our own towns. Who’s going to welcome a hooded and drunken stranger into their house at Christmas these days? We’ve circled the wagons, locked the doors and set the new alarm system. We’re as likely to call 9-1-1 as open the door.

Whatever the reasons for its longevity and recent extinction, I miss sandying—or mummering or belsnicking—even though I’ve never tried it myself. I miss the revelry, the mystery and the irreverent and celebratory edge. I’m nostalgic for such a strong expression of trust, hospitality and generosity in a community that seemed much closer when I was a boy than it does now.

I miss my parents dressed in each others clothes stuffed with pillows, acting like I’d never seen. I miss the relief sandying brought to the longest nights of the year and the gravity of the season. Above all, I miss the tomfoolery and the way sandying could turn Christmas inside out. I miss the silliness that seemed to fit Christmas like a hand in a glove… or is that a mitten on a foot.

Note: “mumming” is the standard term, while “mummering” is the Newfoundland vernacular, which seems more appropriate to use in this case.

Photo Credits

Masked mummer entertaining children © Linda Ross

Masked mummers at Christmas party © Linda Ross

Mummers around a bonfire © Linda Ross

I found my happy place at sleep-away camp. Us New York Jews, we all did. It’s somewhat of a cardinal rule: if you live on the East Coast, are of the Jewish faith and between the ages of nine and, oh, 17, you better bet your kosher tail you’re summer camp bound.

So it was that I ended up at French Woods, a performing arts camp that prided itself on churning out Tony Award winning musicals, impressive dance and music concerts and some damn good circus shows (seriously).

The truth? I loved that camp. I loved that camp so much that I spent six summers of my life there, singing my heart out sans shame. Glee got it right: it ain’t always easy being a Rachel Barry, aka a member of a club that is often the laughingstock of the entire school. But here, at French Woods, we were free to be completely and utterly who we were.

Perhaps I should have known then.

If I could remember exactly where and when it was that I met Bob*, I would tell you. But at my ripe old age of 24, I have since forgotten. I will, however, tell you that we became friends during the summer after my freshman year of high school. Before I knew it, I was enmeshed in a group of 5 people — boys and girls — that became my “posse,” if you will. Bob was one of those people.

It wasn’t long before one of our friends, Rebecca*, became clearly jealous of mine and Bob’s connection. And there was no doubt a connection. Friendly arm punches soon turned into subtle hand holding, smiles became lingering stares and as dramatic as this all sounds, puppy love was wagging its happy little tail at both of us.

Then came the real drama. Bob was staying at camp for nine weeks, while I was only there for six. And suddenly, I only had a few days left until I had to bid Bob adieu and go home to a pint of Ben and Jerry’s.

The night before I left, after the evening’s activity, Bob was walking me back to my bunk. As if on cue (us thespians know a cue when we see one), we both stopped underneath a building and stared at each other. This was it, I thought. It’s now or never. But apparently, it was now. Because the next thing I knew, Bob leaned in and just like that, we were kissing.

The thoughts going through my head went something like this: OMG, am I really having my first kiss? Am I really having my first kiss with Bob? Is he enjoying it? Am I doing it right? Crap, I’m not doing it right and he’s never going to speak to me again. Nice knowing you Bob, I suck at kissing.

When my mom came to pick me up the next morning, I was still floating. I continued to float for the two and a half hour car ride home, and I floated all the way back to visit Bob three weeks later when camp was over.

Except that Bob had lost that loving feeling. When he saw me, he scurried away as if he had seen a ghost. When I tried to talk to him, he said he couldn’t speak to me anymore. Needless to say, I found myself falling into the car for the ride home, not floating. What had gone wrong? What had I done?

Turns out, I did nothing. Well, unless you consider it wrong to be born born a female. Because shortly after that heartbreaking experience I found out Bob had come out of the closet. It apparently only took his first kiss to realize that our fairy tale had opened his eyes to the fact that he preferred men.

Moral of the story? All first kisses can be fairy tales. Some just tend to have a little more fairy than tale, if you catch my drift.

* Names have been changed

Photo Credit

“Disney Princesses” Brianna Garcia 2006 Squidoo.com

In the first season of Glee, I found that Will (aka Mr. Shuester) shared many of my feelings of lingering doubt … Why did I never chase my dreams? What might have happened had I actually auditioned all those years ago?

But these thoughts were fleeting. Life was busy and it was good. Really good.

So it was not until a year after having had my daughter that I found myself feeling wistful while watching an awards show. Here I was, sitting in baggy sweatpants, drinking $10 wine while one of my former high school Drama Club members was walking down the red carpet in a designer dress.

If you take your talent and never give up, turn to page 13 to collect your Golden Globe award.

When Mr. Shuester is feeling this kind of wistfulness, Glee’s OCD-plagued guidance councilor shares a bit of wisdom with him: “They say it takes more certainty than talent to make it.”

There is was. Certainty.

Now, let me tell you, I did not relish the thought of being like Mr. Shuester. Quite the contrary. He seemed like a loser. A wanna-be who just never made it.

But then he starts to undertake a bit of a transformation. Rather than trying to live out his performance dreams vicariously through his students, he creates an all-male a cappella group. Sure, they’re a motley group with debatable talent, but Mr. Shuester is clearly enjoying himself. And that, in and of itself, made him more attractive.

If you choose to step over your pride and have some fun, turn to page 18.

And so it was that six years ago, I entered a room with an 8×10 head shot and a belly full of nerves to audition for a play. My eventual castmates were kindred spirits – former gleeks who also sought the stage, age and size of audience be damned!

As the old expression goes, Mr. Shuester and I will never leave our day jobs.  But you know what? We’re good with that.

Photo Credit

“Drama poster” courtesy of Julie Harrison

“Mr. Shuester” courtesy of FOX Networks