A Streetcar Not Desired

I was now nearly 4 years old my dad had died and my sister had married and left home leaving just my mom and me. I had developed a passion for streetcars, also known as tramways or trolley cars so when my mom said that we had to go Balham, South London I was very eager “ can we go on the streetcar mom” I said “yes” said my mom “If we can catch one” so we went out, just as the streetcar was starting away ”I’m not waiting for the next one “ she said, “the bus will be along soon” so we walked round to the bus halt with me complaining that I didn’t want to go on a bus, I wanted to go on the streetcar, Just then a No 88 bus came along. We boarded the bus “ one and a child “ said my mom to the conductor, the bus started away. It actually followed the same route as the streetcar, thru Tooting Broadway, where it made a right turn, on reaching Tooting Bec an air raid siren sounded and the bus pulled over. You couldn’t see much out of the windows as anti shatter proof tape was stuck over all them , You could just about see thru the little squares in the tape, as the all clear sounded we started off for Balham once more. When we reached Balham a terrible sight met our eyes, the streetcar that we had missed had stopped at the halt under the railway bridge at Balham while the siren sounded, A German bomber who had not used it’s bomb load on it’s target but did not want to take them back to it’s base just dropped them and one of them unfortunately had hit the bridge and went right thru and hit the streetcar below. smashing it into a thousand pieces. My mom and I stared in amazement and horror at the sight before us. We learnt later that everyone on board had been killed. If we had been on the car we would have been killed too.

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