Laurie Lee

I turned to look at the blazing red flames, and the excitement which had surged up suddenly subsided as quickly as it had come.

The little streams ran beneath clusters of bright green watercress, past beflagged osiers and weathered willows.

Up above, the sky was a bright blue - hollowing above me like an upturned canoe.

I leant out to reach the rail and could see for miles, right over the pale and smoke-hidden city to the soundless thunderstorm clouds looming silently in the darken distance.

It was open country - rolling and dipping and swelling like a gentle sea; soft green in the sunlight, with blots of shadow moving upon it.

The hayrack on a hilltop hung motionless and seemed utterly indifferent.

The pond, cradled in a steeply wooded bank, slumbered among bulrush feathers and ringed by a white desert of meadowsweet.

It was just like a train going into a station's cloakroom and a little girl waiting for someone while the train went inside to put away its coat and luggage.

A bed was made up for me on the floor beside Grandmother's and soon I was sleepily aware of her lying quiet beside me, only six feet away in turnips and wet earth.

The pale smoke hung in climbing loops and welters, a cobwebby gray, and the roof-tops of War-documentation Paramounts starred and sparkled, as though a shower of powdered stars had fallen and settled upon them.

Granny trundled along beside me, her skirts hoicked up by the side of the handlebar.

Poppies shimmered and darkened by the edge of the road, like dark red matches bending lazily in the wind.