The Girl Who Came to Tea, A Childhood Memory of Wartime London. A Threnody for Violette Szabo.

My mother and her sister left the room
Closing the door behind them,
But I was more fortunate,
I was allowed to stay there,
Cosy and warm in a safe place,
A small child in the corner
Playing on the floor.
Violette sat talking seriously with my grandmother
At the table by the window,
A beautiful young woman
Buoyed up by excitement and real pride.
My grandmother treated her with a greater natural respect
Than the smart naval officer who sometimes came to call.
I knew that she was exceptional, an unusually important visitor,
But my infant mind just could not work out why;
I assumed she was a member of the family.
She was fiercely serious, considerate, but also fun,
She seemed to carry happiness in her pocket, a gift for friend and stranger,
And she lit up the dowdy room with her bright young smile,
I felt privileged to be there
In her company.
Violette stayed quite late, apparently without a care, just passing the time of day
With cups of tea and cakes from the family shop.
Then suddenly she stepped forward, stooping and laughing, lifted me high up out of my sanctuary
On the polished linoleum floor,
And for that moment we had become almost equal, wild frenetic playmates
Romping by the fireside in the chilly wartime house.
But so soon she had to leave us, stepping briskly into the black-out,
The wind tugging the ancient Plane trees. An air raid siren howling into the dark.
I gave way to an aching sadness,
A cold mood of foreboding I was too young to comprehend.
"Never forget that girl", my grandmother whispered,
As we watched her walk away
Across the unlit street,
"She is very very special, 
Some time you will understand this, but not today,
Just never forget that we are lucky to know her". 
And now, more than sixty years later
I know just how special she was,
And how precious that evening was for her
Amidst the catastrophe of war.
A week or two later she flew back into France
On her second secret mission.
This time the Gestapo got her. She kept silent under torture.
They machine gunned her against a prison wall.
No ashes remained to send back home to England.-
But although at that time I was only a very small child
I have still not forgotten, nor will I ever forget
Her sweetly infectious smile,
Her cheeky South London laughter.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter. 17th.-22nd. January 2013. 
For Violette Szabo, the bravest of the brave. My grandmother never fully got over her death.
2nd. poem in sequence of Poems in Times of War.

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