Blitz Spirit

Peter Gordon as Harry

Harry: It was different after the bombin started. Less larkin around. I mean, I’d seen the First War so I was used to it, but I did used to worry about the younger ones. Just little lads they were. We’d get the call, and turn up to look for survivors. That smell of blood in the air, heavy an sweet. It was the kids what used to get to us. They’d be scattered about like … torn-up teddy bears.

More often than not the first job was chasin off the looters, half of em disguised as wardens like us. I swear to God, and I apologise for takin the Lord’s name, but they’d raid the bombed out ARP stores and steal the bloody uniforms! First it was just kids, but then the gangs moved in.

They talk about a Blitz spirit. Our finest hour. Don’t make me laugh. It was every man for himself, pure and simple. Durin the blackouts - ... well. Let’s just say it wasn’t only the lights that went out. Yeah. Only Blitz spirit I saw came in a bottle.

Evie, my wife, she used to hate me goin off at night. The Germans started puttin timers on their bombs, to catch the rescue squads. UXBs. Unexploded Bombs. Terrfiyin. I saw it happen once or twice. I was slow on my feet on account of my old shrapnel injury from Wipers. So I didn’t always get there first. I was lucky.

One night in November almost the whole Islington Home Guard got taken out by a five hundred pound UXB. We don’t know if it was a timer or a malfunction. Anyway, the Hackney Guard was asked to help out after that.

The houses round there, my God. It was like Buckingham Palace had been laid bare, all across the street. I’m tellin ya, the East End had copped it for so long while the rest of London still went to their wine bars and dinner clubs and la-de-da night after night. It was almost satisfyin to see the rich coppin it as well. We stood for a minute, all of us, Hackney boys young and old. Moments like that, you begin to realise the riches of this world. Bedrooms blown open. Jewellery boxes twisted and scattered. Gold, silver, candlesticks, pearls. Winkin at us through the flames. You see a scene like that … well. The flicker of possibility moves inside you. Like a worm. A worm in the heart.

That was the first time for me. I found a wedding ring, beautiful little thing. It was still hot. Danny saw me do it, but his pockets were already heavy. The look he gave me. I’ll never forget it.

And so it goes. The habit forms. The worm curls, and tightens its grip. We were never … systematic, as you might say. Some were, oh believe me. Sometimes we’d turn up only to have pot shots taken at us by the gangs already swarmin all over the place. Those bastards’d even pull up the carpets. Vans full of furniture, racks full of clothes, swiggin from the drinks cabinets as they’d go. Pullin rings off the fingers of the not-quite-dead. They were the vermin, they were the scum. Not us. Not us. We was just survivin. D’you understand me? Never takin more than we needed.

Plus we had our golden rule: You never take from a body.

Sometimes I’d stand there with a row of pearls in me hand, or a crystal decanter, and I’d think to meself ‘I wonder if this is happenin in Germany?’ Heard later they used to shoot people like me on the spot.

‘People like me’. A robber of the dead. Back then, I thought I’d almost got used to the idea.

We had to deal with the spivs of course, to sell the stuff on. It was winter, and Evie wasn’t well. We’d have tinned fish from Spitalfields, bread from Brick Lane, coal from Dalston, whatever I could rustle up. She learned not to ask too many questions. We got by.

I thought of the husbands on the front sometimes … but they were probably dead an all.

In December, after an incendiary attack, we were asked to clear up after the Fire Service. Place was black and drippin. They’d missed a body, or left it for us - it happened. First thing I noticed was this golden locket round her neck. The picture inside had been burnt out by the fire. As for the lady it was on… well. You learn how not to see after a time. Avertin your eyes a little to the left or a little to the right.

But this beautiful golden locket – untouched. The heat should’ve melted the whole thing, but it hadn’t. Only piece of colour in the whole blackened mess. I thought that was a sign. A golden locket to break my golden rule. So I took it. I took it for Evie. Something for her to cling onto when I was out on duty. Little picture of me an her, next to her heart.

Maybe it was that that cursed her. Maybe it was divine retribution. God knows I deserved it. I like to think she was wearin it the night she died. But I never found out, cos they took everythin. We didn’t have much. But they took it.

I can’t describe the feelin. Anyway everyone’s got their scars. We leave pieces of ourselves scattered about don’t we? Like torn-up teddy bears.

Copyright © Fin Kennedy 2006 - Not to be reproduced or performed without permission