I have had my nose in a book for several days now…lost in memories that are as much a part of my life as of the author’s. Brenda Ashford’s, ‘A Spoonful of Sugar’ contains stories of the War years that I too recall. I thought I would share some of them with my readers.
I was so young, just a little girl, one of several in an ordinary Canadian home. Dad was with the C.P.Railroad and Mom was trying to raise Dad’s kids, her kids and their kids. It was an interesting life with little money but lots of love. The threat of World War II was not a part of my early childhood. Why would it be with little sisters to torment and older siblings to run to with torrents of tears, the results of some bumps and bruises. But then the war seeped into the situation.
My brother Gordon sort of disappeared. Later I found out he had run away from home, lied about his age (he was only 16) and joined the Army. I missed him. He and I were buddies.
Besides my brother, things that had been part of my life disappeared too…licorice candy cigars, tiny candy ice-cream cones…gone, gone, never to be seen again until after the war. The word ‘rationing’ became a part of everyday conversation and it directed all parts of our lives. Ration-stamps were the precursor of food-stamps. They decided how much sugar, tea and coffee you could buy at the grocery store.
And the music! Like any pre-teen I was very interested in the music of the day and can still sing the war songs that filled our small radio. Music was used to stir the soul…music of love, of longing , of hope and dreams for the future…music that can still make me weep.
I can recall going down the street with my wagon and several strong bags. A man filled the bags with sand and put them on the wagon which I dragged home. I am not sure what it was all about but in those days you just did what you were told. And there were ‘black-out’ curtains on the windows. Luckily an invasion never occurred but the threat of one hung over all of us.
Then one day a dreaded telegram arrived. My brother Gordon had been wounded and my Dad said ‘I think he’d like a letter from his little sister’, so began a correspondence that lasted until his death nearly forty years later.
The author of this book I am enjoying, spoke of the day the War was over. I recall it vividly. Our house on the hill overlooked Main Street. The fire siren was screaming, car horns were honking and the people were running up and down Main Street yelling…it was quite a show!
The War was over and I in my innocence asked my mother “What will be on the News now?”
But the news of war never ceases…and there was The Korean War, The Cold War, The take-over by the Communists of Hungry, Eastern German and the rest; the Vietnam war…and now all the wars of the East that spill across our TV Screen.
God has promised us he will never send another flood but I sometimes wonder how he can continue to love us when our lives are so full of hatred for one another.
And yet, grandchildren and great-grandchildren arrive and we have hope. Hope that there will be a better world for them…and we pray earnestly for a peace that seems to constantly slip out of our hands. God will not forsake us and to that promise I will cling.
Photograph: “Mak“. Licensed under CC BY 2.5 via Wikimedia Commons.
