Air Raids – source work

1. Air Raids – source work I remember hearing something I’d never heard before — the sound of my mother crying, somewhere in the distance. Then, a little later, someone came in and said that I had to be a brave boy from now on and look after my mother, because my father was dead. I don’t recall it as being a shock. It was too soon, and I was perhaps too young, to feel any sense of grief. I went through to the other room and there was my mother, and she was crying, and she was alive. I sat down beside her, and she put her arms round me, and I suppose I tried to say whatever a boy of nine years who has just lost his father tries to say to his mother, who has just lost the man she loves. I didn’t cry. I thought it was important not to cry. Boys didn’t cry. My father had died, and he was a hero, but that wasn’t something to cry about. This all happened over forty five years ago as I type these lines, and things have changed. I haven’t struck a single letter without seeing the keys blinded by tears. (George MacBeth, writing in 1987)

2. I simply wasn’t old enough to realise the tragedy ofit all. The real high spot for me was going out into the streets and watching the bombers pass overhead. There were strange whistling noises as chunks of stray shrapnel flew past me and planes were darting around the sky like mad bees. I thought then that it was all just one big adventure. Once, I found a glove with someone’s hand still in it. I threw it back on the smouldering rubble because I didn’t think my parents would appreciate mebringing it home. (Jimmy Saville recalled life during air raids,1986). When the sirens went around 9o’clock, I called mymother and she came down the stairs. She said, ‘I’lltake Raymond.’ I said, ‘All right, I’ll take Sheila.’ We called Mrs Trott, the lady upstairs, and shecame down with her three children. We went in our cupboards and I sat on a tiny chair, and put Raymond at my side and held Sheila in my arms. After that, I didn’t know anything. I must have come to in the cupboard because I heard my father say, ‘I’m afraid your mother’s had it.’ Then I said, ‘Sheila’s all right. She’s in my arms. I went to touch my other child and I couldn’t feel him. I must have lost consciousness again. Later, I learned that my mother was dead and the two children were. Mrs Trott was killed and her two children. (Gwen Bunt was in Plymouth during the spring raids)

3. Some people talk about those days as if they were a time of a true communal spirit. Not to me. It was the beginning of an era of utter terror, of fear and horror. I stopped being a child and came face to face with the new reality of the world... But I wasn’t only miserable. I got bars and bars of chocolate out of the chocolate machines. Here was a new life, a whole city under the ground. We rode up and down the escalators. The children of London were adapting themselves to the times, inventing new games. And I used to ride backwards and forwards in the trains to see the other stations of underground people. (Bernard Kops lived in the East End during the blitz, describing what it was like for a child. Written in 1963) * Communal – living together and sharing things Are the memories of Bernard Kops similar or different to those of Jimmy Saville & Gwen Bunt? Give examples to support your view.