Faded Dreams by Eileen Haworth Read Free Book Online

painting his chicken cote, occupied the remaining floor-space. The higgledy-piggledy-connected electric light bulb was shielded with a red lampshade, and a family photograph was nailed to the wall. Joe invited the neighbours round to admire and envy his new custom-built shelter that could easily double as a guest room.
       There were plenty of false alarms but it was almost a year, August 30 th 1940 to be precise, before the first German bomb dropped on Blackburn. There was more to come the following night, and with the first whine of the air-raid siren Joe and Florrie moved their sleeping children from their bedroom to the sanctuary beneath the stairs.
       Joe flung the front door  wide open, his eyes struggling to adjust to the darkness, his ears straining to identify the drone of the aeroplane as, “friend or foe”. A shaft of light escaped the parlour, piercing the blackness and stretching its beam to the opposite side of the street.
       ‘It doesn’t sound like one of ours , Florrie,’ he called over his shoulder, ‘I think it’s one of theirs … it’s to be hopes that bugger from last night hasn’t come back to have another go at us.’
       The A.R.P man lurking in a doorway to the left of the spotlight shone his torch in his direction. ‘Get that bloody light out.’
       Joe was lucky to escape a fine for his carelessness. He swiftly closed the door behind him and joined the man across the street. ‘Sorry about that, pal. Jerry doesn’t sound so far away tonight, does he?’
       Ten minutes later the sound of an explosion sent him scurrying to join his family under the stairs to wait anxiously for the siren to sound the “All Clear”.
       The next day the raid was the talk of the neighbourhood. Although there had been no casualties from the first air raid there were at least a couple of deaths this time, according to the stories milling around there.  And Joe, with his inexplicable fascination for the macabre was more than willing to add his own two-pennyworth to them.
    *
       Whenever there was a drama of any kind Joe liked to be in the thick of it. He would visit gravely ill people he barely knew to offer sympathy or practical help. He would attend the funerals of total strangers, weeping alongside legitimate mourners at the graveside before wangling himself an invitation to the boiled-ham-tea that followed.
       And then there was his morbid interest in crime and punishment. He was drawn to the local Magistrates Court to gape at the petty criminals, or more compellingly to the nearest Assizes where the more serious crimes, like murder, were tried.
       Spellbound, he would watch the judge carefully arrange his “black cap”, (in reality a simple square of black cloth,) atop his silver wig before uttering his final words to the prisoner, “… taken…to a place…and hanged by the neck until dead… and may God have mercy on your soul ”. The enormity of  a spectacle that would be unsavoury to most people satisfied Joe’s childlike curiosity and gave him a chance to grieve along with the families of all concerned.
       It came as no surprise to Florrie therefore, when on the day after the second air-raid he said, ‘Come on cock, be sharp and get you hat and coat on and we’ll take the kids downtown to have a look where that bomb dropped.’
        Florrie drew the line when it came to accompanying him to strangers’ funerals, but looking where the bomb dropped was different. She swore blind that the bombing last night was his fault in the first place. He’d been daft enough to open the front door during the blackout and now people had been killed and injured.
       He pushed his way to the front of the growing crowd on Ainsworth Street dragging the girls with him and leaving her to follow. And there it was, a five feet deep crater.
       ‘By God, what a bloody mess,’ he shook his head in disbelief making no attempt to conceal his excitement, ‘I wish Fred were here