From
Smoke Rising: London 1940-1
for Tony Frazer
it’s supposed to buzz for fifteen seconds and then go off
but some of them buzz a few seconds and go off
the important thing when dealing with these mines
if you have to move them at all
before you take the fuse out
listen
very carefully
all the time
and if you hear it start to buzz run like hell because you might have up to fifteen seconds
__________
one flaming mass a burning fiery furnace a remarkable thing
anybody could get out of that area and when we saw people
the movement of people in the intervals of a storm
come streaming down from dockland we were absolutely amazed
women and children an army marching running
dirty and dishevelled streaming away from
danger carrying bundles over their shoulders hurrying to get away the
afternoon the docks were on fire people going past our house
like refugees just bundles turned out of their places nowhere to
go then all of a sudden the most horrible roar the
place got hit there was miles of us buried there the
A.R.P. trying to dig us out and transfer us to stretchers
in the road I’m afraid I don’t remember much more I
was unconscious bodies on the footway in the road I stood
and watched for a few moments and eventually some of them
stood up to my relief they were not all dead but
some were stick after stick of bombs dropping into the flames
hurling burning wood embers showers of sparks hundreds of feet into
the air gangs of A.R.P. clearing earth from buried Anderson shelters and
bringing occupants dazed and half-suffocated out into the air heavy with
smoke and charred timber crockery pots and pans a few articles
of furniture pony carts barrows prams and cycles homeless shocked penniless
out of the borough destitute a steady stream at the Tube
Station almost every bus stop families with suitcases and packages making
their way out of danger many of them no longer had
a home and all they carried was the clothes they stood
__________
Well we have one little girl here he says not identified
and when I looked I’d never seen such a shock in
all my life all her little hair was burned and her
face where she’d put her fingers right across all the fire
was there well I suppose the Lord’s taken her to be
right out of pain altogether I’d sooner her go that way
than be maimed for life a little cripple and then I
thought what about my mother and we never did find anything
of mother at all and I don’t think a day goes
by without we don’t talk of my mother and my little
daughter it was the Lord’s way to take her and not
be injured and I still think we’ve got her with us
__________
don’t know if I care
much a bomb’s blown
the outside of my house
down and my son was
killed three weeks ago at
New Malden he was
coming home from work
and got to the station
the bomb dropped on
the booking office there
was nothing left of him
proper burial and a
coffin but what was in it
nobody knows I’m sure
it wasn’t my son now my
house has gone I don’t
know
__________
One little boy of four
re-experiences the bomb
falling on the place his father worked works
the uneaten meal on the table
the search for the lost body
endless inquiries at offices
waiting at the mortuary
every falling bomb is the bomb
kills his father
for Tony Frazer
it’s supposed to buzz for fifteen seconds and then go off
but some of them buzz a few seconds and go off
the important thing when dealing with these mines
if you have to move them at all
before you take the fuse out
listen
very carefully
all the time
and if you hear it start to buzz run like hell because you might have up to fifteen seconds
__________
one flaming mass a burning fiery furnace a remarkable thing
anybody could get out of that area and when we saw people
the movement of people in the intervals of a storm
come streaming down from dockland we were absolutely amazed
women and children an army marching running
dirty and dishevelled streaming away from
danger carrying bundles over their shoulders hurrying to get away the
afternoon the docks were on fire people going past our house
like refugees just bundles turned out of their places nowhere to
go then all of a sudden the most horrible roar the
place got hit there was miles of us buried there the
A.R.P. trying to dig us out and transfer us to stretchers
in the road I’m afraid I don’t remember much more I
was unconscious bodies on the footway in the road I stood
and watched for a few moments and eventually some of them
stood up to my relief they were not all dead but
some were stick after stick of bombs dropping into the flames
hurling burning wood embers showers of sparks hundreds of feet into
the air gangs of A.R.P. clearing earth from buried Anderson shelters and
bringing occupants dazed and half-suffocated out into the air heavy with
smoke and charred timber crockery pots and pans a few articles
of furniture pony carts barrows prams and cycles homeless shocked penniless
out of the borough destitute a steady stream at the Tube
Station almost every bus stop families with suitcases and packages making
their way out of danger many of them no longer had
a home and all they carried was the clothes they stood
__________
Well we have one little girl here he says not identified
and when I looked I’d never seen such a shock in
all my life all her little hair was burned and her
face where she’d put her fingers right across all the fire
was there well I suppose the Lord’s taken her to be
right out of pain altogether I’d sooner her go that way
than be maimed for life a little cripple and then I
thought what about my mother and we never did find anything
of mother at all and I don’t think a day goes
by without we don’t talk of my mother and my little
daughter it was the Lord’s way to take her and not
be injured and I still think we’ve got her with us
__________
don’t know if I care
much a bomb’s blown
the outside of my house
down and my son was
killed three weeks ago at
New Malden he was
coming home from work
and got to the station
the bomb dropped on
the booking office there
was nothing left of him
proper burial and a
coffin but what was in it
nobody knows I’m sure
it wasn’t my son now my
house has gone I don’t
know
__________
One little boy of four
re-experiences the bomb
falling on the place his father worked works
the uneaten meal on the table
the search for the lost body
endless inquiries at offices
waiting at the mortuary
every falling bomb is the bomb
kills his father