Ronnie's War

Ronnie Warren lives with his mum while his dad is away fighting. For him, World War II brings a whirlwind of events and emotions that carry him through the terror of the London Blitz to evacuation and romance in Lancashire, from adolescent misunderstandings to the bittersweetness of Victory in Europe Day, 1945. From schoolboy hero to teenage survivor, this is Ronnie’s story.

“Bernard Ashley’s great gift is to turn what seems to be low-key realism into something much stronger and more resonant. It has something to do with empathy, compassion, an undimmed thirst for decency and justice.”
Phillip Pullman

But it wasn't only the bombs. What Ronnie hadn't bargained for were the flying slates, the daggers of glass, and the shrapnel pinging about like bullets. It was all dust and smoke and dodging. Looking up he could actually see the crosses on the Jerry wings, and the bomb racks opening. So he pelted back the way he'd come, and on towards Welling. He took a left turn, and came to a halt in horror. This wasn't Rush Street any more. Where that first bomb had fallen the houses were spewed across the road and firemen were hosing into the rafters of the buildings. Policemen were leading people away, bloodied and blackened, one of them a baby girl carried by her mother. The sight of it all twisted Ronnie's stomach and thumped his heart - while his lungs choked up with the smoke and dust.
But, his mum, his mum! Could this be happening to her? He ran to where he could leave the streets of Plumstead and head across the fields. He jumped the banks of the dried-up Quaggy river and on towards the wider roads of Welling. Above him the Spitfires, Hurricanes and Messerchmitts were fighting their own battles - and the sudden sight of a parachute coming down caught Ronnie again. Invasion? Was this the invasion? Were the Germans softening them up with bombs, then sending down their paratroops?
He ran on. He had to get to Auntie Edna's to be with his mum. But as he ran he kept looking up - and saw that it wasn't a man's shape on the parachute, but a round thing: it had to be a bomb. People in steel helmets shouted at him; a policeman, and another warden.
'Take cover!'
'Get into a shelter you stupid kid!'
But no one was going to put him off. The air was thick with black and yellow smoke, the ground kept shaking with high explosives - and as he ran into Wickham Street a thunderous burst threw him half across the road. The parachute bomb had landed. Again, the air was sucked out of him and he pressed his eyeballs hard in the blast, stumbling blind into Auntie Edna's road, where his mother would be.