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Bread and Childhood

 

Me and my gasmask-tin started Infants' school

on the same day in 1940.

Come to think of it, we were never far away

from each other for the next five years.

Our Mam said times were hard, what with

the food rationing and all that.

We often had bread and lard for tea, but

to be honest, I acquired quite a taste for it.

Well, you couldn't waste anything in those days!

Mam said it was like feeding the devil if

you threw away any bread,

what with so many people dead or dying

so we could all be free.

Sometimes, though, at Sunday tea we had

tinned fruit, but Mam made us all eat bread with that

yet nobody seemed to get fat, so I suppose

it must have 'done us good'.

Remember eating chewing-wood in the streets

because there weren't any sweets to buy?

When I hear today's toddlers cry for them

in supermarkets, it makes me wild,

and I want to say, "You should have been a child

in my day!"

Mind you, we never seemed unhappy

and I often wonder why our Mam

said times were very bad.

I just remember all that bread

and loving Mam and Dad.

 

by

Shirley Frances Winskill 1997