Diary of a Lighterman

Dear Diary, Yesterday was an extremely busy and sad day. It was the second day of World War II and children began evacuating from London Bridge to Greenwich so as a waterman, I had to take them across the river to safety. When the children went onto the barge, I could hear loud bombs crashing down onto innocent buildings. My stomach turned inside out as I climbed onto the boat. My fears grew little by little as I became more and more worried about my family. Questions began to take over my mind. Were they okay? Where would they be? Are my children choosing to evacuate? Was our home destroyed by the loud bombings? All of a sudden, loud sirens beamed across the entire city. My heart pounded faster. As I began to drive the boat, I could hear the deafening sirens become quieter and quieter. During the middle of the journey, everyone became calm and relaxed and enjoyed the peace of the village we were passing. But it didn’t stay like this. Approximately five minutes later, the children began to sob and cry of sadness because they were missing the parents. I couldn’t tell them to stop as I would do the same in their position and I was also missing spending time with my family. Luckily after a couple of hours I had finished my 7 shifts to and from Greenwich. Walking home, I was anxious of our home. Was it still standing? As soon as I arrived on the street I did not need to worry anymore: it had crumbled into shards of tiny pieces…in the midst of it stood my family. They were all shivering with fear as they did not think their house would be ruined. However I had remembered to keep clothes, tinned foods and bottles of water in the cellar so for the rest of the night we searched the heap of the wooden pieces until we found them. Today, despite our house getting bombed, I still had to go to work. It was tough as many more people wanted to travel to Greenwich which meant that the boat become crowded and stuffy. Although the sun was still shining, I could still feel a light wind blowing against my face as I was sitting next to a window. Whilst the passengers hopped off the boat a wave of tiredness struck my face. I had completed six whole shifts yet I still had a few hours left before I went home. Drowsy, I opened the tug’s door to let the bunch of petrified people in. they were all in tears; families were lost, homes were lost and everybodys hearts were broken. shareen