Time Passing

By Terence Goodchild

Kevin Connor and his family mother, Josie brother Paul and sister Lucy lived and tried to survive in world war two, with not much food and little luxuries times were hard for the family, their father, Bernard was away doing something very secretive for the army on a need to know basis and the family had no need to know.
Then one day a letter came from the government telling them their father had been killed in a roadside bomb in North Africa, not really knowing their father as he was away a long time their grief not that turbulent, so they try and live without their father.
Lucy worked at the local cinema while she studied to become a doctor one day, there she met an American Airman named Paul was training to become and engineer one day, while trying to date every girl in the district. When his father is killed he then joins the army to the sadness of his mother knowing she has lost her husband to war now she may lose her son, Paul is sent to Singapore for training but is taken prisoner by the Japanese when they take Singapore and is transferred to Changi prison and then on to the infamous Burma railway.
When Kevin grows up, he becomes a journalist He is sent to Korea by his paper because the Korean army have captured a soldier for spying who they believe is Kevin’s father who is supposed to have died in Africa and he has to go and identify him to exchange him for American soldiers captured by the Korean’s

• Language: English
• Publisher: Terence Goodchild
• Release date: Apr 4, 2018
• ISBN: 9781370412761

Terence Goodchild

Terence J Goodchild I am an English writer born in Manchester in the north of England and now live in Tasmania with my wife on a farm with our horses. After travelling in Europe for many years my wife and I came to Australia for a holiday in 1981 and found that we could live in this country, so we migrated in 1988 to Melbourne, but now live in Tasmania. I have been writing for about 12 years, and have written 17 novels of fiction and about 100 poems that I may put in a book one day, I try and make my books somewhere the reader can escape to, and hope they enjoy my stories, I put in a few truths, just for spice to make it more interesting, and a few one liners, I put the characters in my stories of people I have met and places I have travelled to and write how I see things,

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

Kevin Connor and his family mother, Josie brother Paul and sister Lucy lived and tried to survive in world war two, with not much food and little luxuries times were hard for the family, their father, Bernard was away doing something very secretive for the army on a need to know basis and the family had no need to know.

Then one day a letter came from the government telling them their father had been killed in a roadside bomb in North Africa, not really knowing their father as he was away a long time their grief not that turbulent, so they try and live without their father.

Lucy worked at the local cinema while she studied to become a doctor one day, there she met an American Airman named Paul was training to become and engineer one day, while trying to date every girl in the district. When his father is killed he then joins the army to the sadness of his mother knowing she has lost her husband to war now she may lose her son, Paul is sent to Singapore for training but is taken prisoner by the Japanese when they take Singapore and is transferred to Changi prison and then on to the infamous Burma railway.

When Kevin grows up, he becomes a journalist He is sent to Korea by his paper because the Korean army have captured a soldier for spying who they believe is Kevin’s father who is supposed to have died in Africa and he has to go and identify him to exchange him for American soldiers captured by the Korean’s

TIME PASSING

It was around eight thirty at night when I lay in bed thinking of what I would be doing at school tomorrow, my thoughts were broken by the rumbling noise far away, then the wailing sound of the sirens split the night air and I knew tomorrow may never come.

‘Quickly children.’ mother shouted. ‘We must hurry to the shelter’

We picked our favourite things, the things we used to take with us for comfort, if you could call it comfort; we also took with us our trusty gas mask packaged in a cardboard box courtesy of the British government. When we put them on we all looked like frogs and talked as if we were underwater. I took my comic’s Paul took his books on engineering mother took her knitting and Lucy of course took her makeup I mean, if we were ever invaded, she had to look her best,

We had done this on many occasions; it had all become just a matter of course, so we all had to retreat to the air-raid shelter. The year was 1941, the war in Europe was at its height, and there was death and destruction everywhere. The radio and newspapers reported the war and all that was going on in Europe and North Africa, and gave us the daily ritual of the horrors of war, no one really believed what he or she read anyway as the truth if there was any was all too secret. They the newspapers on pain of death from the government only wrote what they wanted you to know, on a need to know basis as it were, and we didn’t need to know, and at this moment in time no one was safe, Hitler’s troops were trampling on everything in Europe and it seemed no one or nothing could stop the tide of death, these air raids became common place and something we had to live with. My family and I lived on a council estate, and we were called the Connor’s Brother Paul, me Kevin, my sister Lucy, and of course our mother Josie.

Our father, Bernard was an airman, based in North Africa, in some air corps not many knew the name, and if the truth was known did not really care.

He had been called up as they say as so many men were, it did not matter if you had a family or not, but they did draw the line at old men and boys,

When I mean boys, I mean young boys of sixteen and seventeen, there were some who lied about their age and got killed for their stupidity, as they did in the Great War ww1 how they can call war great is beyond me.

But as the saying goes England expects every man to do his duty, our father never really put up much of a resistance so off he went to war.

Not that it made much difference you had to go and that was that, he left us one day dressed in his uniform and carrying his kit bag. Funny though, just the week before he had another uniform on, that of a bus driver, he just traded one uniform for another as easy as that, but you don’t get shot at being a bus driver, well not in them days these days it’s a different story. It is strange how they take ordinary men like my father and the butcher down the street, and the coal man, and sends them off to war to become killers, what a strange world we lived in. Our mother, Josie didn’t cry much she just gave a slight whimper as he kissed us all good-bye, then he kissed her, and that was that. He was away two years before we ever saw him again; he came home on leave for just two days, seems hardly worth it, to travel all that way for just two days, he was home and then gone again. The house seemed very empty without him and meal times became very strange with one chair vacant. Our mother did not mention him our father very often, and this seemed not at all right, but who knows they may have had their own reasons for not telling us. My father wrote to my mother, but the letters got less and less, it got that way in the end it all got a bit too much, what with all the secrets and the censored letters and trying to cope in a war with little food and clothing. And in the end it never really mattered, and if we had asked, no one was going to tell us anyway, but to the shelter, we had to go, I remember the shelters so well, the smell of damp and the strange echo of people talking.

The memory has lived with me all my life and is a time I will never forget, today I can still smell the damp air, seems strange how we hold onto memories in our mind.

We all had to sleep in bunk beds set out down one wall that were two beds, high with a small ladder fastened to the end, for the person who had to sleep on the top bunk and had to climb up every time we were down there in some air raid that was in itself an adventure. It was usually me who had to scale the heights, as I was the youngest of the family, good job I did not have vertigo, still who would have listened if I had, but from that advantage you could watch the reaction of people has the bombs fell.

It was a very trying time for all of us and having to go down to the air raid shelter, every time Hitler and his boys thought it was a good idea to drop a few bombs on us, was in itself a pain in the backside. So here we all were in this underground tunnel, grouped together like a lot of moles in hibernation. The Red Cross tried to make things bearable, well as bearable as could be expected in the circumstance, by bringing round soup and bread and saying, it can only get better, better than what I never did really find out. Then of course we had our secret weapon, Charlie bass the local pub singer ‘Right come on you lot let’s have a singsong.’

Did you know that all life in Britain in times of strife and war revolves around a singsong and a cup of tea, India must be on overtime trying to cope with the tea situation, I often wondered where they thought all their tea was going and to whom.

‘Right come on you lot roll out the barrel.’

Charlie started to sing and in time the rest slowly but surely joined in one by one you could see their mouths start to move.

I suppose looking back on those times it was a spirit of comradeship and caring that gave them the strength to carry on and made them sing. But to us children who had nothing and did not understand, it was boring to say the least, but I suppose you have to be happy with your lot, when you haven’t got a lot. There was this dark man I remember so well who was always on his own and had no family that I saw, and played a mouth organ and a guitar. The tunes he played were very slow and mournful, but they had a strange hypnotic sadness about them. I once asked him why he played sad tunes, and he replied ‘What is there to be happy about young man?’

I guess putting it that way I had to agree with him on that point.

He told me that the music was called the blues, and originated in the American Deep South, when the people of Africa were brought over to America as slaves, it is called Negro music, and they used to sing to make them happy, seems like us but maybe they never had tea.

I said ‘What’s a Negro.’ He replied.

‘You are down here because someone wants what you have a Negro has had this kind of treatment for two hundred years.’

‘Wow’ I said. ‘That must have been some war.’

He just laughed and carried on playing, and then he said.

‘One day when you grow up you may ask questions and I hope you get a true answer, but until then just be happy to be a child because it is the best time of your life and it will soon be gone, so hold onto it.’

So I went back to my family not knowing what the hell he was talking about but would find out many years later in a very strange way.

‘Who was that man you were talking to Kevin.’ Paul asked.

‘I don’t know, but he seems to be down here whenever there is an air raid, mind you, where else would he be in a an air raid. He does not seem to have any family he is always on his own he said he learned to sing from some Negro who went to war for two hundred years.’ I knew I would get the story wrong

‘What.’ Paul said?

‘That is what he told me he said he learned the blues because the Negro’s wanted what we had and it took two hundred years.’ I replied

‘You talk through your arse sometimes our Kevin.’ Paul answered

‘No, I don’t.’ By this time I was feeling very indignant.

‘That’s what he said he said.’

Just then mother interrupts. ‘Kevin.’

‘Yes mum.’ I replied

‘Be quiet.’ Was all she said, so I went and sat next to Lucy who was reading some soppy magazine.

‘What are you reading Lucy?’ I asked,

‘Nothing for little boy’s now go and play.’ she replied.

That’s what I like about my sister, nothing, she is so nice to be around, my next victim was Paul but I got the same reception from him. So I went to find some other peace if that was possible, how come no one listens to me, just as I was walking away mother shouts.

‘Don’t you get lost, our Kevin?’

Lost how the hell can I get lost, it's not as if the Rocky Mountains are at one end, and the jungles of South America are at the other. The shelter is a hundred yards long and forty feet wide, Hitler’s boys are dropping bombs outside, and my mother is worried I will get lost.

‘How am I going to get lost mother’. I said.

‘You know what I mean.’ she replies.

I looked at her and said. ‘No matter, I don’t know what you mean.’ I replied, knowing what was to come back.

‘Kevin, let’s have less of your cheek.’

Came the reply from Paul so off I went to get lost if I could I passed Charlie Bass he had a young lad on his knee singing

‘Sit upon my knee sonny boy.’

The kid looked more bored than I was, I sat down on a box near some men playing cards not that I knew how to play cards, but what the hell, I felt a hand touch mine, it scared me so much I jumped up, and fell over the makeshift card table, the cards went everywhere and I fell on my back.

‘Jesus, son you are doing more damage than old man Hitler.’

I got up and said I was sorry and looked around to see who had grabbed my hand, and staring at me was a young girl with the darkest eyes, I had ever seen, she smiled at me and ran to her mother who was sitting on a bed, I carried on down to the bottom of the shelter and came across some kids of my own age playing marbles, and asked if I could join in so they let me, that is how I met William Preston and Alan Wilmot they will appear later in the story. The rumble sounded like the gates of hell as someone aptly put it, but not knowing what the gates of hell sounded like, I would not know, but that was the cry of someone further down in the shelter, then there was.

‘God save us.’

I thought now that maybe asking a bit, but the bombing carried on for some time, we tried to get some sleep but no avail. I suppose everyone wondered what would greet them once they got outside, if their houses would still be standing, when at last the bombing ended some three hours later. Then the siren sounded for the all clear, and many heard a sigh of relief. I walked back to my family after getting lost for seven days in the jungles of South America, I looked for the girl who grabbed my hand, but could not see her maybe she was just a dream. We all gathered our measly possessions together and once again started to assemble at the entrance to the shelter in single file like we were in school. The warden opened the door and the acrid smell of explosives wafted in, and with it a cloud of dust, that made the people nearest the front choke, and they all started to cough, the warden shouted

‘All get back till it’s cleared.’

Just as he was saying that a gust of wind blew and he caught the full brunt of the cloud and was covered from head to toe in white dust, serves him right silly sod.

Wardens try to have this air of authority, but they are just men that could not go to war, because of some ailment or another, so one by one we climbed the stairs into the dark of night, not knowing what to expect. The night sky was glowing from so many fires, houses, shops, buildings that had been destroyed in the attack, water sprayed everywhere from burst pipes. It looked like the John Wayne films when he tried to cap the oil wells that was many years later I may add,

The smell of gas was very strong, we walked slowly through the devastated street covered in glass and broken bricks, back to our street, not knowing if we had a home or not, Two policemen rushed past holding a man in handcuffs they were beating him around the head with their truncheons they had arrested him for looting.

The looters were the worst parasites they waited for an air raid, and risking their own lives, ransacked people’s homes not only did our people have the Germans to contend with but also their own. Which made it twice as hard as when you arrived home someone had taken all your belonging’s not very nice people were looters, and the government took a very dim view of anyone found looting. Looking back they would have had to bring something to our house poor as a church mouse springs to mind. Apart from Lucy’s makeup, they would have had to drive a truck to take that away, but seeing there was no petrol it was very unlikely

As we neared our house, my mother gave a shout of glee that scared us all to death.

‘It’s still standing.’ She shouted. ‘Thank god.’

See there they we go again, he gets the glory or the blame for everything in life. So we stepped over broken bricks and glass and opened our front door some explosion had thrown debris from the other side of the street.

It had all landed on our doorstep, I must admit it was a great joy to have your own home when so many had lost theirs. When the day dawned, and the extent of the damage was assessed, it was not a pretty sight. The Ringwald’s had lost their home, which is very sad because they had received a letter from the government saying that, there father was missing in action so that bastard Hitler had got at them twice.

The Johnson home had been hit and was leaning very badly and would fall over at any time, so we all gave them something to get them by and help them out until they could get somewhere else to live. The Salvation Army put them up in the church hall we don’t know what we would have done without that great organization. Mr Johnson was fighting the Germans in France if he knew what old Adolph had done, maybe he would have fought harder. But us being kids thought it just a great place to play, not knowing, or caring what human misery the bombing had caused.

There were times when not only did the war and the bombs get you but government bureaucrats. The government in their infinite wisdom, decided to send all young children away who’s father’s were at war and the