Aoife's Blog: Charlie Ratchford Centre
March 14, 2011
On Friday, February 25th, I went back to the Charlie Ratchford Centre to work with the older people there. I was told fascinating stories about the blitz and the reality of being evacuated from London during the Second World War. It was a real privilege and very inspiring to learn about a time that's not so long ago but is hard to imagine from the point of view of our comfortable 21st century lives. Here's a piece I wrote based on this session about being made homeless. It's a true story.
Shelter inspired by Charlie Ratchford Centre for older people
She shows me a picture of the Primrose Hill tunnel circa 1837 saying see how close they were to the steam train. They'd never let you so near the tracks now. Ladies in their swish of skirts and parasols. Gentlemen in their high hats, long coats. An air of countryside despite the glitter of metal from the fabulous open mouth of this miracle of engineering.
She says she's not from round here originally but was evacuated from the East End during the war to what they called South Hampstead back then. She feels for those caught in that earthquake in New Zealand, she knows what it is to be buried alive. First night of the night bombing, her mum, her sister and herself all rushed for the next door neighbour's Anderson shelter. A chap who was a soldier gone off to fight the Germans but before he went, he dug the deepest, strongest shelter you've ever seen. It was almost as if he had a premonition. For when the planes came over, they struck so near, the back of the shelter collapsed killing his heavily pregnant wife. She was the only one who died, as if in mockery of all the evenings he'd spent reinforcing his future.
Her sister just had scratches so her mum said to shout, which is not so easy to do when your mouth is full of earth. But her mum was not one to go quietly so shout they did. Shouting and shouting into the dark. She has dreams sometimes about it still. That feeling of being trapped, smothered.
She was six years old when the volunteers pulled her out. Ordinary heroes who went round digging survivors from their graves. She remembers the whole road had disappeared, apart from funnily enough the vicarage, where her father was being comforted having been told his whole family was gone. He was a tin smith down on the docks. A target bombed all day every day. Every second he expected to be blown to smithereens. But now they said he'd lost everything, his house, his wife, his two girls. Nobody could survive such a direct hit.
It was only years later that she understood. At the time she didn't know why when they walked in looking like the chorus line from 'Les Mis', her father started crying and couldn't seem to stop. His health never really recovered from the shock. He had a few mental breakdowns after that, the strain of it all she supposes. They were evacuated seven times. In some ways, she can't help feeling they never did get to go home.
By Aoife Mannix
by Aoife Mannix
| No comments yet
Share this