'A fresh wave of planes made their appearance and it seemed they were headed for the school. We heard their engines low above us. Sticks of bomb whistled down and the air was literally torn apart in a loud rushing noise. Everyone instinctively crouched. The bombs exploded, rocking the great building to its foundations but by some miracle the school escape unscathed and nobody was hurt. But the awful expectancy had been too much and I sensed a rising panic as the overwrought women burst into tears and the little ones, sensing their fear, began to scream.
'Something had to be done and done quickly, so with parched throats a few of us tried to sing. Then my old dad, possessor of a fine rich tenor voice, began to sing something they all knew, Just a Song at Twilight. It was touch and go at first as he tried to adjust his dry throat. There was a sudden hush as they listened to him sing, then here and there a few voices around us joined in, then more, and soon it became a swell as they sang the lovely old refrain with him.
'What a tonic that was! To hear those tired folk lift up their voices in song, then more songs - and the wits among us with their spontaneous cockney humour had us all laughing in no time. But best of all the little mites were quietened and the badly frightened children had fallen asleep in their parents' arms, so the grown-ups too fell silent.'
Violet Reagan
from Ben Wicks, Waiting for the All Clear (1990)
