An fraud (impostor) reproduction and a sale or distribution of this work is illegal.
Work can be used in private for educational purpose or entertainment only.24/05/2023
Aurélie Asseo
Part of Douglas' childhood in the 1940s
extracts from chapter I and chapter II😊
"Stoke Poges is a sleepy hamlet in the Buckinghamshire countryside on the fringe of Slough. A now largish town near London and it was there that I spent my childhood. However, my birth was in the East End of London in Whitechapel, and therefore I am a cockney,born within the sound of Bow Bells, a church destroyed in the Blitz and rebuilt later. The war in Europe was a year and a half away, and although I count myself a Londoner for reasons recounted later, the landscape around my first years, sufficently far from the conflict, remains predominate among my few relative recollections of infancy.
There have been no brothers or sisters to accompany me,a situation dictated by the unfortunate disposition of my mother who suffered for the greater part of her life from a severe psychological complex. After several years of marriage, my father, a City of London bank employee, was advised that perhaps a child would help her condition and so I arrived.
Thomas Gray's `Elegy written in a Country churchyard ` was composed it is believed under a yew tree at Stock Poges, a fact sometimes iterated to me by my father who adored and often quoted the poem. I doubt whether this had any effect on my love of the Buckinghamshire countryside around our home but love indeed I felt for the fields,hedges, tree and even the churchyard,surrounded by cows, I traversed from time to time. I dimly remember a marble,slicky-white tombstone of a child , adorned with a toy train and a small boat. On revisiting the churchyard many years to search among the graves for the train and boat, the tomb had disappeared, but the yew tree was there just in front of the church port.
Perhaps it would be nearer the truth to say my recollections of childhood, although that few , are nevertheless so strong that they form a blue-print arguably agreeable sometimes less so, for much which influenced and changed my around the age of eleven to thirteen.
That my home was endowed with family joy, stability and security is questionable . The garden was there, where I often played alone,fairly large front and back with a lawn leading down to the country road.The house was mock Tudor,partly designed in the late twenties by my father with the help of an architect friend, and who insisted on a north south frontage with windows at each end of the lounge and dining-room. Consequently,while the rooms were well lit, in winter , especially during the war , the temperature was perishing cold.
My father would return after work on his bicycle from Slough station in the evening and then stand in front of the open fire place, the coal burning pathetically,while frozen and trembling ,his nose running with a constant cold and coughing between lungfulls of smoke from cigarette after cigarette.That, however has not deterred me from smocking up to two packets a day for the last fifty years.
Later, I would go to bed ,snuggle under the satin eiderdown which would continually slip to the floor,half -listen to my parent below and eventually fall asleep.
The reality of the war struck me on just three occasions. One sunny afternoon while I was playing in back garden,I heard a distance noise growing louder and soon thunderous from behind a tree.Sudddendly the sky was darkened over the tree and a German bomber flying very low,probably lost or partially destroyed,loomed above me,the black crosses on its wings clearly visible.I do not remember whether I was frightened or just curious.
Two great aunts, sisters ran a tiny tobbaconist-newspaper shop in the poor discrict of Bermondsey, London, and once fairly early in the war my parents took me to visit them.The counter of the shop fascinated me with its array of unwrapped , multicolored sweets in large jars,although I was not accustomed with the sugary flavors, a veritable jar Alladin's cave in the dimly lit gas light.Auntie Jessie and Auntie Kate were kindly,childless ladies, if a mite forbidding to me in their sombre gowns,and as I learned later,much respected and loved by their customers among the neigbhouring folk. I believe one was married for I vaguely recall a man present, sitting in a chintz armchair while reading a newspaper in the back parlour seperated from the shop by a curtain.
As crepiscule descended ,my father decided to drive us home back in his ancient, little Austin. No sooner had we departed along the partially deserted streets of London, the alert siren began to scream and at last one bomb fell near by exploding in a trail of fire.Somewhere fire-engine bells commenced to clang.I remember my parents' frightened races at the moment ,but no more to the journey back to the safe location of our home.
After this hazardous excursion,the Austin was taken off the road and parked in a garage belonging to two eldery ladies who lived in a small bungalow a small distance away ,and our own abestos garage beside the house was left vacant for me to play in on rainy days.This decision was later to create an extremely difficult problem for my father to resolve;the two ederly ladies threatening to take legal action involving spying for the Germans,circustamces which would have been almost hilarious had it not been prompted by the sad mental state of my mother who had inadvertently spread the rumour.
At uxbridge ,some miles away to the north east from Stoke Poges,the army an an important range of anti aircraft guns that fired frequently during the night.While and more an echo than a detonation,those nights fearfully disturbed my sleep.When I cried , my father would come into my room to comfort hold me in his arms , assuring it was not a thuderstom which always terrified me and continuted to do do until just recently.
The war for my father ,whom I later call Skipper was quite a different experience, calling for discipline a great measure of courage.His bank, Martins,long ago absorbed by Barclays,was situated at Lombard Street, the centre of banking in the city with the Bank of England nearby. A large golden grasshoper surmonted the entrance. In the last year of the First World War Skipper was a pilot in the Royal Flying Corps (not yet the R.A.F.) flying Sopwith Pups in the Royal Flying Corps (not yet the R.A.F) enemy lines.his patriotism was fervent and duly in 1939 he immediatly volunteered for service in the armed forces, he was declined he never elucitaded to me, but I suspect they were for his family situation and the fact that his was very near the age limit .
Disappointed, consequently he did the next best thing : to volunteer night-watch duty on the roof of his bank throughout almost the duration of hostilities. In 1940, during the Blitz and later when the doodle bugs and VI rockets dropped on London,this was no easy undertaking and demanded acurate observation relayed by telephone,calm and control of his fearful exposure. There is a celebrated photo of St .Paul's Cathedral silhouetted with its dome intact illuminated around,a furnace from the bombs that fell. During many nights,in the Blitz alone on his roof , Skipper surely witnessed this profundly moving scene and recalled later the miracle was almost completely spared, while virtually all the buildings around were razed to rubble. At least two nights a week he stayed at the bank while others were taking the underground or buses back home . The canteen was left open so that he eat his supper cooked and served by the manageress,a handsome woman in her thirties.
And so I was left to play alone for most of the day, sometimes in my room , a small boxroom looking out onto the frown lawn and the trees across the road, but more often on the floor of the dining room and if the weather was in the back garden . It was there on the grass and under an elderebery tree that I remember most. The tree held a certain fascination;not that it was climable but rather it stood alone above the small coal bunkers from which I could reach a thick branch and swing a litttle as I gazed above through the top , the sky laced with summer leaves,
The 442 route from Slough continued after our home about a mile to the hamlet, Farnham Royal, where it met the 441 from Windsor going north to Farnham Royal Common and beyond . My first school was situated close to a bus stop at Parnham Common, a private house overshadowed by tall trees, and had on one side a spacious area of grass for recreation .The first day my mother took me there.I felt nervous and extremely timid,especially as before I had experienced little contact with other children and, what is more,suffered from an acute stutter which I realized would cause me serious problems. No efforts have been made to diminish this severe handicap,just a feeble attempt to reassure me that even king George had the same and yet was brave enough to make his Christsmas speech on the radio.
We were met by two teachers , the headmistress, stout, oldish and dressed in a longue black robe , and a younger woman ,tall, thin and spinterish ,who spoke in the fashion of the often hillarious actress, Joyce Greenfell,one may remember from the fifties. "Come along Douglas" she half-sreeched"and meet the other pupils". The other children took little notice of me ,for which I was grateful,and I was promptly led to an infant's desk in the middle of one of the two classrooms,forbodingly gloomy from the trees close to the window.I had no idea what to expect ,for my parents had given no previous tuition, and had rarely looked at a book, none to be seen around our house,or counted a couple of pennies,somehow the day passed uneventfully,punctuated by lunch served at two long tables,surrounded by the well behaved boys and girls numbering about twenty-five.
My mother came to fetch me later in the afternoon and left me alone for a moment in the classroom while she spoke with the headmistresss.I gazed at the blackboard now clean after the chalked letters I had tried to understand, looked at the walls, partly covered with maps,pictures of animals and lists of words, and felt very sad and inadequate.
About his first love Anna nicknamed Wendy he writes:💗😊
"Anna was nearly sixteen , a couple of months older than I,pretty with long jet black hair , lovely blue eyes and a trim mature figure ..But it was not only this that had first attracted me in the abbey. Even at twenty feet away,I discerned something irrepressibly joyful and beautiful in the expression of her face , a magnetism to bring forth a tender response from the heart.Was this likely at sixteen or is it now a romanticized reccollection tinged with nostalgia?As I listened to the duet "ah! vorrei trovar parole" from the opera "la somnanbula by Bellini,I know it was likely then ,now and will be at sixteen sixty and even when only six.The emotion lies firmly in the soul between the region of intellect and body chemistry, and it is an entity ready to be awakened.
On sunday afternoons, we were free until study at five to do what we liked to do in the recreation room,playing areas outside or further afield away from the school. I met Anna with her bicycle at a crosssroad nearby,and, I as had no cycle ,taking turns to push hers we began to walk together to the country.She was a day student and explained that on weekends she frequently took trips to watch birds in hedgerows and woods,and so had no had no trouble leaving home for several hours. in fact she was a budding ornithologist ,full if information she imparted enthusiastically with little prompting from me.Birds were not a really an important factor in my life, although I could recognize a sparrow, pigeon and a robin in winter but I listened attentively and more than enjoyed her company.
we took a track leading into a wood ,in a clearing, we sat on a conveniant log I had observed on my morning runs.It was early October,sunny and almost hot.She told me of her other interests, chiefly painting in pastel and playing the cello, and I discussed mine,trying to impress her with my passion for fishing and efforts at cross country running.
On page 348 "Yasmina lived with her companion Sylvio,they about to marry that summer, in the centre of Geneva ,and Cambiz with father in the oriental ,carpet buisness,alone at the village of Celigny near the lake not far from Nyon. Sylvio had studied art,particularly leaning towards forms influenced by tribal African and American Indian traditions,and was attempting to make a career in wood sculpture, while Yasmina was a trained nurse although at the time unemployed.
Our first visit was to them, their cramped apartement situated among the left bank quarter of Les Eaux -Vives aside if not forgetting the historic centre 's cathedral of Saint-Pierre,the city chief land or rather lakemark was set in operation- the enourmously high fountain "le jet d'eau".From photos I have seen of her father : quite short,dark haired and vivaciously round faced disclosing an inclination to revel in frivolity, in keeping with her aparent temperament as one soon discovered . Sylvio,a little taller and fair ,while subdued in disposition and sparing in humour,without his moustage could have been mistaken for the young Bob Dylan, although Sylvio's musical talent not quite in the same line: occasionally, in rare moment relinquished from aabsorbtion in sculpture, a fine bongo player along with his brother Cedric ,somewhat of a virtuoso. Sweet hearts since their late teens, easy going in habits and hospitable, they made me at once truly welcome : the surounding aura of home and sylvio 's primitive studio near a flea pit,porno cinema ,together with stop bys of similarly impecunious friends,if, nevertheless, just solvent for paying the rent, was almost kindred to a barely imaginable , granted its prosperity. Swiss"La Bohème"
page 357 my birth 😊
"One the twenty-second of February , Raymonde phoned mid-morning to annouce she had heard Yasmina was going to have a miscarriage , and was in the maternity unit of Geneva's main hospital. I closed the shop immediately , leaving a message "closed for an unforseen event" shalked on a blackboard outside ,and we descended rapidly in a state of extreme anxiety.
We arrived only minutes before Yasmina was taken into the delivery theatre.I remained in an adjoing waiting room,whilee Raymonde was admitted to be at side of her daughter . Clotilde and Sholeh were with me in silence until the door of the delivery theater opened.
Looking out into the corridor ,I glimpsed a trolley with two minuscule babies on top , wheeled fast to intensive care. Emily* and Aurelie had been born: the absolute limit of premature birth at five months and three weeks.
*anglicized form of the name of my sister Amelia
Raymonde stayed with Yasmina transferred to separate room , while Clotilde ,Sholeh and I found the cafeteria,joined by Sylvio,who had been informed at work not long before,Cambiz and Ardeshir . The atmosphere was decidely gloomy ,for, Raymonde,who paid a brief visit and was told the survival of the twins would be extremely unlikely.I tried to cheer us all up,and said there was always a chance ,to have hope, endorsed by Sholeh.
After the birth that night, I prayed earnestly to God , if not possible for the two.,at least one to survive . I was incapable of knowing wether he intervened ,but it seemed , as reported by the doctors quite quickly that Aurelie had a potential chance of living. As the condition of Emily on one of our visits, the shop staying shut for ten days,Yasmina still mostly in bed, asked to see me alone. she confided imploring me not to tell her mother, Emily despite all efforts made was in the process of dying.Sadly for us all, she did probably mercifully two days later.
Aurelie continued to thrived under an incubator, until she was judged to be out of immediate danger. Only Yasmina and Sylvio were allowed to see her. Unfortunately she suffered a slight cerebral haemorage, often the case of greatly premature baby, the consequence of which was only discovered only a year later.
Certain individuas , who knew of Aurelie's condition in Geneva hospital,said she should have been left to die like her sister.I thoroughly disagreed,for life, no matter how precarious,was infinitely worth saving and precious.
With Aurelie doing well after a month in the incubator , I was permitted execeptionally, as recognized a good photographer, to enter the larg ward with premature babies and take photos of her provived I used no flash.I approached the incubator to hear the nurses intermittantly calling out the names of others also similarly protected, a psychological practice for each baby in turn to hear his or her name,presumedly said to them by parents and sense a presence of security.On seeing Aurelie under glass and connected with tubes to her nose and elswhere.I was suprised to see how tiny she still was . her eyes were closed. Her eyes were closed, but the form of her lips like a rose about to bloom,convinced me she was on the way with a mighty will to fully establish her life. I cracked for love of her, a moment never to be forgotten,and then took the photos in black and white with a new Leica camera, the film espcially made poor by lightening .I was allowed to push my hand through a plastic closed entry and touched her lightly in tenderness "
