Days of youth

They could nt pay her what she was worth , but they were eternally grateful for her service. 

Her calling  had changed bringing up the five of us ,we all had to muck in and grow up. Going from stealing sweats when the shop owners back was turned to helping pay the rent at the aged 15 mum got me the job and I was to uphold her good name. 

Then in a  few years the yanks came , Glenn Miller and jitter bugging. I was popular cause I had the look  , the styled hair , the English rose complexion and the dance moves I learned at the pictures. 

The mill was loud you couldn’t hear yourself think I d spend all day thinking about the night at the drill hall. It took our  minds of the everyday and we took their minds of the war which seemed to be on hold after the Battle of Britain. 

An endless summer of dancing and parties , dancing till near dawn then a few hours sleep before work. The owners did nt get mad if we worked a little slower and yawned though the days they had been young once and the summers of their youth still haunted them like ghosts who did nt want to move on into purgatory or late middle age.  

That summer will always be with me ,  no longer a child but without the weight of years or of consequence. Those  times were grave but our hearts were light , beating with the inborn energy of youth in which every moment is immediate.