No Longer a Child

When I was a child and my aunties visited they would often share stories about the war. This was one of my mother's.

No Longer a Child

One day a child, the next she was not

when hankies for Christmas was all that she got.

She had wanted a doll dressed in linen and lace

silky, brown curls and a sweet painted face.

‘No longer a child’, that’s what they said,

‘You can’t have a doll! you need hankies instead.

You’re too old for play and you’ve had enough learning,

lessons don’t pay, it’s time to start earning.

We need food on the table and clothes on our back.

It’s money we need. It’s money we lack.

Plus, your service is needed the world is at war!

Never mind dolls or the fact that you’re poor.

So still wearing white socks but no longer a child

and yet too young for stockings or hair that was styled,

she went out to work, her head in a whirl

because deep down inside she was just a young girl.

When the siren first sounded she wanted to flee

but no longer a child, she was told 'wait and see’.

Then they heard the first bang and they left in a hurry.

Stairs two at a time. She tried not to worry.

Into the shelter, deep underground

while London above crashed all around.

Blood sweat and fear was all she could smell,

trapped under the earth in a new kind of hell.

With nothing to do other than wait

and try not to contemplate what was her fate.

Alone with these strangers united by war.

She had wanted a doll but now longed for more.

Then the all clear was sounded to clapping and cheers,

released from containment and all of their fears

of what may have happened and what they had missed,

while under the ground when London was blitzed.

Then they left one by one, sisters and brothers

daughters and sons, fathers and mothers,

along with her comrades she silently filed

and she emerged from the ground, no longer a child.