"We had another very bad bombing Saturday night, closed the other end of the road so now we are completely hemmed in. Mother is frantic again. All window frames blown out again and the locks off the doors. Luckily, half the windows had already gone so now the rest have joined them. It was a very terrifying experience. Mother swears we are near the railway and will get bombed again tonight. I hope to meet you again in saner times. Keep safe".
Those words are from a letter sent by one of my Mum's close friends in West London, just one of the many letters that I found in Mum's loft after she died. They are now stored in the Imperial War Museum.
It was only as I grew older that I started to understand why she always left the room when a war film was on the television. Like many who have lived through war, it's something that she tried to forget - but, in her case, never fully recovered from.
Of course, that terror is still being repeated daily somewhere across the globe. That's what we have to remember.
No comments:
Post a Comment