In the present, each day we live shall be the sum total of our existence... (Paraphrasing "These days, though lost, will be all your days...")
In a quirky turn of events, my young lad was fixated on Janet & Alan Ahlberg's iconic book, Peepo! – a peek into a baby's daily life complete with clandestine wartime backdrop, including the London Blitz's gloomy cityscape. I couldn't help but ponder over how we, huddled in our house within a converted Victorian warehouse in vibrant East London, would've survived the entire Blitz. It seemed our safety was a delicate game of inches, with neighboring buildings in our very street flattened to the ground.
I began to question if there had been a Belfast Blitz too. I vividly recalled my grandmother recounting tales of scrambling up the Black Mountains in search of shrapnel. Interestingly, like the erosion of the Troubles, the only fictional account I managed to find was Brian Moore's The Emperor of Ice-Cream.
The Belfast Blitz was a definitive event, happening less than a lifetime ago. I felt compelled to speak with individuals who had lived through the Blitz as children, teenagers, and even someone just entering their 103rd year of life. The spring of 2020 – amidst the looming shadow of Covid-19 – gave my quest an ironic urgency: preserve these invaluable narratives before they slipped into oblivion.
Driven by this newfound urgency, I wrote with an intensity I can scarcely describe. The Belfast Blitz encompassed four aerial raids in April-May 1941, making Belfast one of the targets hardest hit by air raids in the UK, with some of the greatest devastation and mass casualties.
As I surfaced from my writing frenzy, I'd contemplate the memories my children, then 5 and 2, would keep. They spoke of a greengrocer with oranges or their first girlish dress made for their scorched doll rescued from the flames. The somewhat bizarre joy in a car ride amidst the chaos.
Life persists, no matter the darkness shrouding it. The individuals who experienced the Blitz and these current challenging times left indelible imprints that forever changed them. But the beauty of life lies in its transience – the milestones we reach, the relationships we forge, the experiences we amass. As Seamus Heaney so eloquently states in his poem,\"These days, though lost, will be all your days.\" These moments – ours and theirs – are the very essence of our existence, and we must relish them, cherish them, and live them to their fullest.
Hailing from Belfast, born in 1981, Lucy Caldwell is an accomplished author of various novels, stage plays, radio dramas, and short story collections. She has been recognized in numerous prestigious awards, such as the Commonwealth Short Story Prize, Edge Hill Readers' Choice Award, and the Dylan Thomas Prize. She currently serves as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and has edited esteemed anthologies like Being Various - New Irish Short Stories.
In light of my personal growth and fervor for education and self-development, I began to delve deeper into the historical accounts of events such as the Belfast Blitz. These tales, like the invaluable stories from individuals who lived through the Blitz, serve as milestones in our lives, shaping our relationships, experiences, and broader perspectives – much like the impact of a beloved children's book can have on a young mind.
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