My Mum goes to work early every morning before I get up. She has a horse on a milk round. She even had to go on my birthday last week - I was five - but she came home as usual with a nice big bar of chocolate, so that was all right.

My Gran sees me off to school every morning; it’s just across our road. My peg’s got a picture of a whip and top on it and my best friend Steve Shaw’s peg has got a wagon wheel.

My Gran say’s that I won’t be able to sleep with my Mum for much longer because she’s getting married to Jim and that we’re all moving in with Auntie Annie - me, Mum and Jim. I’ve slept with my Mum forever; I hope they change their minds. I could fit in between them. I’ve asked my Mum and she said, ‘We’ll see.’

Jim’s OK, he takes us out to the club - we even went to the seaside last week. He’s got a great trick, he finds lots of money in the gutter; he just puts his hand down and then pulls out a load of coins and gives them to me. I’ve tried it on my own but I can never find any. Jim say’s that you’ve got to know the secret place but he can’t tell me because it’s a secret and that he can only tell me when I’m twenty-one so I can buy my own beer. Seems a long time to wait, must be a really big secret.

Jim’s got a dog, it’s a collie called Rex and it’s really well trained, it does all kinds of different tricks. Yesterday was the best day of my life. Jim, Rex and me were out walking near the club when Jim said ‘Do you want to see my house’ and I said yes. He lives with his Dad called Albert and his sister Mary. Jim told me that his Dad had only got one leg because he’d lost it in the first war and that he’d won loads of medals. I asked Jim if his Dad had killed any Germans and he said loads, so I couldn’t wait to meet him.

He only lived at the end of our road. We went in; it was just like our house, but this house had got a man with one leg who lived in it, a man who had got some medals and killed loads of Germans; this house was much better than our house.

His sister Mary was nice, but nowhere near as pretty as my Mum. Albert was very old; he was sitting in the corner with one arm leaning on a table, a crutch propped against the wall, one leg shaped as normal, straight out from the bottom of his body, turning at the knee and down to the floor. The other came out from his body like its twin but then it just stopped where his knee should be and was resting on a stool.

My eyes were fixed on the stool. ‘Don’t worry about that, son,’ said Albert, ‘It’s only what the Jerries pinched.’ 

‘Pinched, Mr Bacon? Jim said you’d lost it.’

Albert cracked out laughing. ‘No, the Jerries shot me in it and the Doctors had to chop it off and throw it away.’

‘Does it hurt?’ I said.

‘Not anymore, son, not any more.’ Albert was still laughing.

I asked my most important question. ‘How many Germans did you kill?’

‘Loads, son, loads, before the buggers finally got me,’ he said, but not laughing anymore.

‘Come and look at what I’ve got out for you,’ he said pointing to a box sat on the table.

I went over as he was opening the box; inside were medals, Albert was telling me about them as he pulled them out one by one. Got this for that and got this for that and got this for that, then he came to the one, a black cross with a white edging.

‘That’s a German Iron Cross - took it off a Jerry,’ he said as he held it up.

‘Why did he let you?’ I said.

‘He couldn’t stop me, I’d just bloody shot him,’ he said, laughing out loud. 

‘Serves him right for pinching your leg, Mr Bacon.’ Albert laughed that much I thought he was going to fall off his chair.

I couldn’t take my eyes off this piece of metal, I held it, rubbed it, even sniffed at it - this was great. This was definitely a much better house than our house; I wonder, when Mum and Jim get married, if we can’t all move into this house with Albert instead of Auntie Annie’s. I wouldn’t mind sleeping on my own then.  

© John Sales 2001.