Barefoot and Lost
Authors: Brian Francis Cox
Barefoot and Lost
By
Brian Francis
Barefoot and Lost
Registered with the
UK
copyright Service
UK
©
CS
335042
Copyright
©
Brian Francis 2011
The right of Brian Francis Cox
,
to be identified as the author of this work, writing under the name of Brian Francis, has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrievable system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recorded or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.
All characters in this
book
are fictitious, and any resemb
lance to actual persons, living
or dead, is purely coincidental.
Acknowledgements
A very special thank you
goes
to my wife, Adie,
for her love and patience
. Also to Avril Cannom
and Shirley Law, my editing team for their much appreciated advice. And to my son, Stephen, for the design of the book cover.
Finally
I wish to thank
my daughters, Michaela and Katrina for their encouragement.
Thanks
Brian Francis
Preface
Phillip Snell, a boy of ten years old in September 1944, witnesses the death of his mother by a doodle bug bomb. His grandmother takes charge and together they move from
London
to
Hastings
on the south coast of
England
.
The absence of his Father, who has been away at war for the past three years, and an over protective female dominance make him an easy target for bullying. Phillip learns to physically stand up for himself , he finds good friends, notices girls, life is good, until the pressure of returning to work to support him is too much for his Gran and she too dies.
His Grandmothers, employers make a desperate bid to foster him, but an over zealous welfare officer considers they are too old and unsuitable to foster, therefore Phillip is sent to a children’s home.
In this home Phillip experiences sexual abuse; he blows the whistle via contacts outside of the home, a murder, an exposure of a paedophile ring leads to his attempted abduction, and police protection. A further attempt at fostering goes badly wrong and Phillip finds himself once again in a children’s home.
Phillip becomes a victim of the British Government’s policy of forced emigration for orphaned children to the Colonies. On arrival in
Western Australia
he is the victim of brutality by members of a religious order. Phillip and a friend abscond and begin a journey that takes them half way across this vast continent. Almost dead from exposure he believes he has found someone to love him, not out of pity or duty but for being Phillip, but then maybe he is just a substitute for a lost son.
‘S
hut the door
Mum,
I can see the light from the candle
’
My Mum is calling as she runs up the path to the house.
Gran struggles
out of her bunk banging her head on
the bottom of my bunk and curses
‘
Forg
et your Gran said that’ she says
as she
goes
to
slide
the
door
shut
. I giggle; Gran i
s always swearing
,
mostly
bloody or shit, but even though she has
a strong
East London
accent her swear w
ords always
sound so polite.
Mum left our
Anderson
shelter only a minute ago to collect the thermos of tea from the kitchen table; she had forgotten to bring it when we ran down here half an hour ago, just as the air raid siren started wailing. Gran told her not to go, but mum said ‘I’ll only be a minute.’
Gran is struggling
with
t
he door i
t has
always
been
difficult to
close.
A blinding flash lights up the shelter, the air inside is being sucked out then
,
with the sound of
an express train
,
the air is rushing back in
. ‘Oh my Gawd’
Gran cries out as she stumbles and falls backwards onto the floor. The explosion is deafening
, my head feels like it is being pulled off my shoulders. T
he whole shelter is shaking
. T
he dust from the ceiling and the water from the floor have
mixed mak
ing a fog of mud which fills the shelter, I can’t breath
e,
I
dive
under the blanket
s as some giant hand hammers a
gainst the partly closed door.
The
smell of fire and a smell I have
never smelt before
are
filling
my nose and throat making me cough.
‘
Mum
mm
, Gra
aaan’
but there is only silence
,
everything
is
dark
. ‘
M
UM
,
GRAN;
where are you, why won’t you answer me
?’
Perhaps they can’t hear me because I‘m still under the blanket, Peeping out I shout again.
‘Mum where are you?’
‘
Phillip
, are you all right, wh
ere are you?’
‘
Gran I’m in bed, where are you I can’t see you?
’
‘
You stay there like a good
boy
;
Gran will be with you in a minute
’
As my eyes get used to the dark, and with the help of the light
f
rom
a fire
,
which is now shining through a gap at the top of the door I
can see
water
rushing down the step
s
and rapidly filling the
shelter;
Gran is lying on
her back and
struggling to get up. Climbing down
to help her,
I
fi
nd myse
lf standing in water over my knees.
As
I try
to help her
she gives a
n al
mighty heave
but
i
n the small
space
between the bunks she
knocks me
o
nto my back
with a splash
.
C
ough
ing
and splutter
ing I
swallow
several mouthfuls as the water covers my face, unable to get my footing
I
can feel myself
panicking
,
my wet woollen dressing gown
has become so heavy it
is dragging me under
, I feel like I’m drowning.
Gran
is shouting
Phillip, Phillip, and hits me in the ear
as she franticly tries to grab
me
, I
gasp
from the blow
and swallow more water
,
somehow
our
arms connect, and I catch hold and
Gran
hauls me to my feet.
‘
Oh my Gawd Phillip are you
okay?’
she says lift
ing
me
dripping wet
,
onto my bunk,
before
climbing up beside me
.
Her bones must have got younger
, she has always said her bones were too old to climb up here
‘
Quick
help me
get your wet dressing gown off and
wrap this blanket around us
;
c
ome on
,
cuddle
up to
your old Gran we must keep warm’
‘Gran what’s happened has a bomb hit us?’
‘I expect so, we’re lucky to be in the shelter’
‘
Where’s mum
, why is she not coming back?’
‘
You know; she went to get
the thermos of
tea
,
but can’t g
et back in because the door is blocked by rubble,
so
she has probably gone to get some help.
Shush; be quiet for a minute, I think I can hear someone out there’
‘Is it Mum?’
‘Oh
Phillip
I do hope so.’
I can hear the bell
s of
fire engine
s
and the shouting
of men.
‘
Come on
Philip
let us sing so they will know we are here
.’ A
t
the top of her voice Gran
start
s
to sing
‘
Ten green bottles standing on the wall and if one green bottle should accidentally
fall there will
be
;
c
ome on
Phillip,
help me sing
.’
‘
Nine green bottles standing on the
wall-----’
‘There is someone here’ a man shouts as he
starts to pull away the rubble. .
‘Hello; h
ow many
of you
in here
, are any of you hurt?’
‘
Me and my grandson,
no we’
re okay, what about
my daughter
, she
was in the house, have you found her
, did she tell you we were here?’
‘I don’t know Ma, let’s get you out first’
the little bit of light grows
as he removes the rubble
he shouts,
‘
Here mate give us a hand to ri
p this door open’
there is a wrenching and a screeching sound
,
and
t
he door comes away.
Two firemen splash their way
inside
;
one of
them lifts me from the bunk the other helps Gran. ‘Here Luv hang onto me neck I’ll put you down when we get to dry land’
‘I’m already wet thank you I can manage’
‘That’s as may be Missus but no point in being soaked, be a good girl, and do as yer told, anyway ye
r
don’t want to spoil me fun,
do yer, I’
m enjoying the cuddle.’
‘Get away with you, you cheeky bugger’ Gran says with a chuckle.
The fireman carrying
me is wearing a steel helmet he has a huge smile that beams
through his dirty face. Stepping
over the fence
at the back of our garden he carries
me through the garden
of
the
house behind
our
s. L
ooking over his shoulder I can see
Mr. Thomas’s
and
two others have disappeared
,
there is
only a
wall,
and a bit of floor that looks like my be
droom
left
standing
of
our house
. From the other houses
,
either side of the gap
,
I can see curtains blowing out of the windows.
How silly
,
fancy leaving the windows open at night
,
we always close ours.
265
