Vanilla Ice Cream

I was a five-year-old Londoner when the war began. I was brought up during a time when the world was tearing itself apart. If I had happy memories from before the war, I cannot remember them. All that I can remember is a darkness from 1939 until 1945. That was what should have been my childhood. I was weaned on dried egg powder, and my lullabies consisted of air raid sirens and German planes. Yes, that was what should have been my childhood, but during those times the laughter of innocent children was fictitious. Innocence, to us, was like a book we could barely recall reading, a song we’re not sure we ever heard; a dream that was dreamt so long ago. 1

It was any time, night or day, that my ever-reliable alarm clock would wake me up. The air raid sirens would sound and Mother would usher us across the road into the air raid shelter. We’d be ready to spend the rest of our lives there, so we’d take our bed linen and wait it out. Windows broke; it was awful. My family and other families would just sit there, all with stoic, bitter looks on our faces. During the air raids all the lights would have to go out. We would have to make it so that we wouldn’t be visible. If we were visible, the Germans would aim for the light, because it wasn’t among their intentions to destroy London, but rather the people within. Children would seek support from their mothers and their mothers would seek support from their children. We were all in it together while we were deafened by the sound of German planes, as we watched our lives go up in flames.2

A typical day for me included air raids, the eternal hope that the house wouldn’t be destroyed and that my family would survive. If my family died, I would no longer have a home, because to me a home is made up of walls and the people in it, the people who I cannot live without. It was with that constant dread that I lived. One time my older brother was coming home from the pictures when an air raid began. Being just around the corner from our house, he decided to run. He ran, while metal bomb fragments flew past him. The bomb fragments were the type that proved one’s mortality, but miraculously, my brother got not one scratch on his body.3

Before the war I used to eat ice creams. Vanilla was my favourite flavour. During World War 2 there were no ice creams, in fact there wasn’t much food at all. At first all I felt was hunger, but soon that hunger became a dull ache, and then it disappeared altogether. Not that I was fed, or had found a way to survive without food, I just ceased to feel at all. There were no luxuries of any sort. We had ration cards for rationed food and for rationed clothes. The life we led was the rationed life, the given life that could be taken away in the blink of an eye. 4

Throughout these dark years I lacked a father figure, for my father had gone to war. He was a soldier. I never saw him until the war was over. Even when he returned, we were strangers. I hadn’t seen him for so long, and even if I had remembered him, I wouldn’t have recognised this war-torn man. Father was too mentally affected to continue his life once he returned. He didn’t know how to live like a normal person, because he wasn’t a normal person. He was a soldier. And being a soldier set him apart from the rest of us. We didn’t understand. We hadn’t seen what he had seen. We didn’t have the scars that he did. But we did hear him call out in the night. We did see him tossing and turning. That, we did understand, for we dreamed too. 5

The end of the war was like waking up from a nightmare. We sweated. We screamed. We called for our Mummy. Mummy came, she comforted us, and we were at peace. We removed the tape from the windows; we learnt to leave the light on. It was a hard time for those of us in the United Kingdom, but Europe suffered more. The Germans never set foot in London; all they could really do to us was send V1 and V2 bombs. They are huge bombs that were sent directly from Germany. They sounded like planes, but you could differentiate them. Up in the air they would suddenly stop and then drop to the ground. And each time we’d shut our eyes and hold our breaths. We would hear an explosion and then thank God we were still alive. But after the war it took us longer to open our eyes. After the war it took us longer to breathe again. After the war London was in a state of devastation. Buildings had to be rebuilt, and even in 1954, when I got married, we were still living the rationed life. 6

Despite all the hardships that I faced during World War 2, I survived. Generally, I think of my survival as being lucky. But for some, survival is to be feared. An example of this is a German soldier who landed from a parachute into the open field near my house. The Home Guard chased him, trying to capture him. The German soldier eluded capture as best as he could, for he knew what followed capture. But it was hopeless. He was caught. Maybe if he had fallen to his death he wouldn’t have had to experience what I imagine he had to. Maybe if he hadn’t survived. Survive is a synonym for live. But many soldiers who went home to their families didn’t know how to live. Existence is futile without meaning. At the front a man has meaning. At the front, a man is a soldier. He is fighting for his country. He is fighting for his family, for his liberty. He is needed. Take that purpose away and he becomes nothing. 7

I, myself, am glad to have made it through. My early childhood was spent merely existing. But now the war is over and there is no longer anything to fear. I, at long last, have a chance to cease existing, and start living. I, after much reminiscence, have the chance to eat ice cream once more. Ice cream symbolises all that we had to long for; the end of the war, the survival of the war. Ice cream represents the longing to go back to the way things once were, to taste that sweetness that we’d all but forgotten. Throughout my years of dried egg powder, I truly cannot say how greatly I yearned for ice cream. And now, as I eat it, it’s not vanilla that I taste, but life. And life itself suddenly seems worth living.8