Autobiography

mistaken for the unclean smell of filth. The
bombsites also had a smell of their own that
too would seep into the house. When the
bombs fell, the shrapnel would fly; breaking
tiles and cutting through anything in its way,
making no distinction between brick, wood or
flesh.
The skies would fall silent only for the drip,
drip, drip of the leaking roof to start up again.
How I hated the rain. All we could do was put a
bucket underneath the roof until it stopped.
Throughout it all, my mother did her best. I
saw her on her knees scrubbing the lino on the
cement floor with carbolic soap, even when she
was desperately ill. The house was
deteriorating around us, but she kept it as
clean as she could. The stench of poverty
embraced all that was going on around us. We
were poor, sick, hungry and cold.
Briefly, on the few occasions when our fire was
roaring and the strength-sapping cold
momentarily abated, we could lose ourselves in
the dancing flames and the warmth. The
wonderful aroma of burning wood would
temporarily fill the room. But in the mornings,
most mornings, indeed most days and nights,
the stench of poverty returned with the stink of
the damp ashes as the rainwater came down
the chimney.
There are so many elements to poverty. There
is hunger, which on its own is not souldestroying
but combined with the bitter cold
and frequent illnesses, it can quickly become
so. No fire, damp beds and stomach-cramping
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