Ian was a classmate that I liked very much. His father, like mine, was overseas. He lived on the estates and when we were small we played together often, and when we started school I sometimes stopped at his house for a while on the way home. Mum would be quite angry, because in the early days of the war, air raids happened at all hours. I found it hard to resist playing for a little while, and one day there was a new pedal car sitting on the concrete path to his house. Ian invited me to drive it and I was enchanted, so much so that I didn’t want to stop. We argued loudly, and I think I was quite rude. I was sent home in disgrace.

I remember Mum and Granny talking one day about Ian’s mother telling them about her son’s nightmare, saying he had run into her bedroom crying. He told her that his daddy had been killed, as the tank he worked with had been bombed. The thing was that in the early morning hours, a telegram message was delivered to tell them that indeed he had died in an attack. Ian was absent for several days, and when he came back to school he was popular among the children, even those in the big room, and asked to tell the story over and over. Both teachers finally forbid any more talk about the tragedy.

The war ended and we began to feel free, no longer thinking about sirens and shelters, or of one day seeing strange, cruel-looking soldiers in our streets. There were celebrations and festivals, of fireworks and red, white and blue bunting hung from mansions and cottages, a blur of color to match the giddy, unimaginable feelings that we children caught from the adults as we rode double-decker buses on our way to visit aunts and uncles, and the far-away zoo with a new giraffe.

Early next spring we began hearing about a new danger. In school and at home. A frightening thing called polio. A new addition to the morning ritual of standing in line for a dose of cod liver oil and malt called for a close inspection of hands. In stern voice from teachers, we heard about the need for the strictest hygiene rules. Mum grumbled when I tried to explain, saying she did not want to be told what to do by a school teacher.

One day Ian was missing from school, and we learned that he had contracted polio. There were no details about his illness, and I was kept away from his house. I never saw Ian again, but heard people talking sometime later that he survived the illness in an iron lung, but was left paralyzed, and that his family moved away from Thorley.

Vaccinations came later, and memories of those fears of war and illness which filled the days and nights of my early school years lived in my emotions, with thankful knowledge of parents, teachers and friends who cared for us in that close little village in times of terror.