The Bombed Garden
Apart from visiting the park and playing in the street, there was another favourite place of ours. Most of the children nearby knew about the Bombed Garden at Kennard Road where three houses had once stood. These were damaged during the war, so were pulled down and the rubble cleared away, leaving three gardens at the back of the site.
All types of flowers grew there: sunflowers, buddleias and roses. A large apple tree, with its bark worn smooth, stood large in the centre garden as boys climbed to the top to pick and aim tiny green apples at the kids playing below. In late summer, Barbara and I took bunches of flowers or raspberries home for Mum, and in autumn, garden spiders would weave their webs which got tangled in our hair.
It was quite safe for us to play there. In those days, as soon as someone’s mum shouted them in for dinner, all the kids would disappear as if by magic, giving in to the welcome reminder that they were hungry.
One Christmas, during the war, Barbara and I had a china doll each from Mum (or from Father Christmas, as we thought). Mum had made their little hats and dresses carefully by hand, sowing them when we were in bed. Barbara’s doll had a rose silk taffeta dress, and my doll, which I named Daisy, had a blue hat and dress. Poor old Daisy had her head cracked on the light switch when we were hurrying to get into the Morrison shelter during an air raid, but Mum put a sticking plaster on it and you could not tell when the doll’s hat was on. Barbara loved her doll and took it everywhere with her, but unfortunately she left it in a nearby bush when playing in the Bombed Garden. Suddenly remembering it when we got home, we rushed back, but someone had taken it.
I should imagine the garden we used to play in has been built on by now. The way things are today, children are not usually seen playing in the street as we used to. Apart from the increased traffic, there is an uneasiness toward the strange society we live in, where small children cannot be left to play alone outside their own homes.
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