Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Playing House



EASY STREET
suggests this title.

PLAYING HOUSE

A meme has brought back a memory. The illustration too.
The memory is very old; from 1942.
I was evacuated, for the War was at its height
And, at that time, the future was looking far from bright.
I was living in a farm-house, quite an alien place to me,
For I had lived my early life right next-door to the sea.
I remember very little, but two daughters I recall;
One was rather older and one was very small.
I wonder whose idea it was to use the old pigsties
As little Wendy Houses, palaces in disguise.
The sties were clean and whitewashed; not a trace of smell remained;
And they were even watertight because it often rained.
Houses for girls to play in? No-one had one of those!
Except for Shirley Temple and the Princess Margaret Rose.
Now I'd a play-house of my own! It seemed like a dream come true,
And we played at being neighbours for at least a summer through.
We had rickety old furniture and crockery past its best,
And thrown-out pieces of this and that, tea-towels and the rest.
We 'visited' each other, gossiped over the garden wall,
Until, I can't remember why, the game began to pall.
I'd forgotten all about it until that little phrase
'Playing House' brought back a facet of my childhood days.


Another imaginary house here:


2 comments:

Rosaria Williams said...

You have this beautiful, peaceful way of taking us down memory lane. Are these memoir pieces going to be compiled?

Kat said...

How lovely. Certain words can sure trigger the flashback. You've gone through the war and peace..!!