Michael Foreman was born in March of 1938, so he was only three years old on April 21, 1941, the night an incendiary bomb dropped through the roof of his bedroom.
Part of his description of that night sounds just like the memory a three-year-old would retain. “The sky bounced as my mother ran.”
Foreman grew up in Pakefield, England, near Lowestoft. He says Lowestoft was a front line target throughout the war because it was a large naval base, and it is the nearest English town to Germany. “Lowestoft and the surrounding area became a practice ground for the Luftwaffe, just a twenty-minute hop to the virtually defenceless coast.”
Foreman’s mother ran the village shop, and she refused to leave when many women and children were evacuated. Young Michael’s earliest memories are of being surrounded by the various items for sale in the shop, vegetables piled everywhere, and legs of people who crowded the shop – locals, soldiers and sailors. The shop window, where he spent much of his time so his mother could keep an eye on him, was his window on the world.
Foreman brilliantly depicts the incidents and people he recalls. Lowestoft was his home and a battlefield. There are illustrations of tanks and farm scenes. Many of his early “playmates” were soldiers and sailors, which made for a unique education. He relates as much about the beauties of life as he does the tragedies.
This is a fascinating child’s-eye-view of World War II. The war was the backdrop of his life. And then it was over.
