We picked potatoes

We picked potatoes

In sets

There were very few girls

As I remember

“Too distracting for the older boys”

The farmer said.

There were one or two,

Who looked formidable,

Amazonian.

All older than me

A different country

Too mysterious and scary

To approach.

Some still are.

I was reminded of

Land army girls

From World War Two

When everything was in black and white.

Air raid sirens were tested once a week

And older, barrel-chested boys

With thin skins

Always joked about joining up.

“The skirts love a man in uniform.”

“In your dreams.”

When I mentioned to mum

That I wanted to join the SAS

Or

Still confused about international differences

Become a Navy Seal

She cried.

I never would have

As I’ve never been one for conformity.

We all scrabbled in the dirt

Hunched down

Walking crabwise

Gathering our spuds.

One of the few girls in my set

Shouted at a rough-looking kid

With a buzzcut

Who got too close.

I didn’t fully understand

What he had tried to do

Under the cover

Of a split sack used for collecting

“Dirty bugger.”

She spat

And he went beetroot red.

Her meaning went straight over my head

I was still worried about V2’s

And an ariel bombardment

When we were too far away

From home to shelter

Under the stairs.

A gust of wind blew up

A cloud of dust and

Little Jimmy Scott

The daft kid with the ginger hair

Who lived above a sweet shop

And was always good for an Opal Fruit

Laughed “We’re finished now

It’s the fallout that kills you.”

‘Who did you fall out with?”

I asked.

He almost wet himself

With laughter.

He’d done it before.

Strange days indeed.