Aufweidersehen Teddy

I have always been unlucky. It was not since taking up metal detecting that lady luck has failed to smile upon me, that particular albatross has hung around my neck since the day I was born.

"Colin, get down here in the shelter you stupid boy," my mother hollered above the sound of explosions from another bombing raid.

With Ipswich being an east-coast port, the bombing had become a nightly occurrence. Whilst adults hated the horror of it all it fascinated me.

How I laughed when I saw old Mrs. Brown's house take a direct hit. Her wooden leg came flying over the rooftops and clattered as it bounced of the rusted corrugated roof of our toilet at the bottom of the garden.

My Uncle Betty (now there was a strange one) had been sat in there reading a newspaper at the time. "Ooh, could have taken someone's eye out," he uttered as he rushed for the relative safety of the Anderson shelter.

Times were hard then. With my father away fighting in Burma mother found it very difficult trying to bring up five children alone. There were many occasions when I went to school sharing the same pair of trousers with one of my brothers - one leg apiece.

Our mother had always been a resourceful woman though. Dad often spoke of the day they met. He spotted her lying on a grassy bank beside the River Gipping, a piece of straw clenched seductively between her teeth. She had used it to siphon diesel oil from a wrecked landing craft.

As the raids increased in intensity a plan was implemented to evacuate us kids from the area. Some would be going to Wales or Scotland and others destined for Canada or Australia. When the day came to leave, we were placed into various groups in Christchurch Park dependant upon our specific destinations. I was the only one in my group.

Shortly afterwards, a convoy of buses ground to a halt, and their human cargo bundled up the steps with obscene haste.

Clutching a brown carrier bag, which contained a dripping sandwich and my one-eyed Teddy bear called Monty, I ran to get onto the same bus as my brothers and sisters, only to be grabbed by the scruff of the neck and thrown on to the wet pavement by an ARP Warden. Clutching my teddy and sobbing quietly, I watched the buses move off without me.

The rain beat steadily down as I stood beside those huge wrought iron gates. An army lorry sped past, throwing up a sheet of muddy, cold brown water. It took my breath away as the deluge soaked me from head to foot. My sandwich floated along the gutter and disappeared down a drain before I could retrieve it. A few moments later, a motorbike and sidecar spluttered to a halt. "Get in," said the fat sergeant from the Home Guard.