Our Bank Holiday - a poem by Deirdre Y King

This story has been written onto the BBC People's War site by CSV Storeygatherer Celia Bean on behalf of Deirdre Y King. The story has been added to the site with her permission. And Deirdre Y King fully understands the terms and conditions of the site.

OUR BANK HOLIDAY

It was on that August Bank Holiday
When the Huns decided to come this way,
They came with a bang, a bump and a boom,
And in many a heart brought deep gloom.

We were at our front door,
But very soon inside did pour,
For we were looking at a ‘plane
and thought ‘twas ours, but thought in vain.

By the Church steeple,
very low tearing along came our foe,
Although we were ignorant of the fact,
For Aircraft Recognition we lacked.

Then we saw something drop from its tail,
And Dad’s face turned quite pale,
“Inside, inside”, he yelled aloud,
And we rushed to the door in a crowd.

We thought we would never open the door,
Seconds seemed to be minutes more,
At last we all tumbled inside,
But did not know where to hide.

In the passage we laid in a heap,
And dared not lift our heads to peep,
The bangs became louder and louder,
And dust fell on our faces like powder.

At the back of our house a few yards away,
A mother of ten had to die that day,
For bomb two fell from another Hun ‘plane
which revved up its engines and sped off again.

At last we got up off the floor
and rushed to that unfortunate door,
What’s happened? we all wanted to know,
Said Dad, “On a bomb I very ne’r did go.”

The doors were wonky, the windows were out,
But the people did not even shout,
Instead they looked at the desolate sight,
But naught could help them in their plight.

After they had had a long, sad look,
Brooms, shovels and picks they took,
For debris had to be cleared away,
Before the dawn of another day.

And out of the debris they dug the people,
Where minutes before they looked at the Steeple,
But some of them would never breathe again,
And some of them were in agonies of pain.

And everywhere one did go,
People told of their tales of woe,
Some would never happy be,
Some had lost their family.

But what do the Huns want in our little town?
What do the Huns want when they send their bombs down?
What do the Huns want when little children they kill?
What do the Huns want, we want to know still.

But although we are a country small,
The Huns won’t get us that way at all,
It makes us fight harder than ever,
Although the Huns think they are so clever.

We will not lose our battle of freedom,
We will not lose our United Kingdom,
We will not lose our Motherland,
We will not lose our love that’s grand.

No, we shall never, never forget,
For the course of the world is set,
And he that doeth humanity harm,
Shall never know God’s own charm.

Deirdre (age 14)

Actually, what Daddy really said was “I nearly took a ride on the bloody thing”. Brought up the way I was, I would never repeat such “language” at 14 years of age, much though I would like to have done, simply because that is what he really said.

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