BROOCH & BRENDA

Brenda and Sid had been going together since she was twelve and he was fifteen. He was the errand boy for the local grocer. He timed his deliveries so he could meet her from school, racing ‘no-hands’ down the hill on his bike. In 1939 he joined the RAF, soon after war broke out. He gave Brenda ‘his wings’, a sweetheart’s brooch worn by wives and girlfriends while their men were away. Brenda had been promoted but was increasingly unhappy. Her boss regularly groped and harassed her. When her brooch went missing she handed in her notice. Her boss boasted that he’d thrown it out of the train window on his commute home. Sid gave her a new brooch but friends said that it’s upside down horseshoe meant that their luck would run out. In 1941 Brenda’s family received a letter from Ernie, Sid’s brother, telling them that he’d been killed serving as a rear gunner on a Lancaster bomber, he was twenty years old.

27 Mar 2011