I know you think it is a bore
When I go on about the war
But every day the nightly news
Treats us all to awful views
Of homes turned into rubble
And then it turns to trouble
As the memories flood in
I grew up in a dockyard town
Nelson’s place, of great renown
The fleet came in the fleet went out
We were a target there’s no doubt
So raids were part of daily life
But to the kids, it wasn’t strife
It just seemed like the norm
The raids at night it must be said
Were bad as one left a warm bed
But daylight raids, now that was fun
We left the classroom at a run
To get into the shelter
And there we sang songs by the score
Until out little throats were sore
Until the All Clear sounded.
One particularly bad night
Gran’s house was blown to bits
Not a single thing was left
And she was of course bereft
She went from family to friend
Begging for room and more
She lived like this until rehoused in 1954.
My other Gran’s house did survive
But was bombed on either side
The rubble was my playground
Giving places good to hide
The neighbors house was now exposed
Unto the sky and air
Amazingly the pictures on the wall still hanging there
What stuns me now that I am old
I didn’t ask, and wasn’t told
What happened to the people
Who once were living there?
Whose pictures hanging on the wall
Were rotting in the cold damp air
I guess I’ll never know.