Free Child from Home by John Wright

arisen. A yellow emulsion was then very gently applied and the messy stuff covered a good part of the skinny boy’s little body from the neck downwards. Her heart went out to him, but the disease was caught early enough to prevent impetigo and he soon recovered.
    By Halloween the rains eased a little and were succeeded by thick clinging white mists that often lingered all day. The trees of my ‘enchanted forest’ looked spooky in the dim, dreary light and the bushes became indistinct and assumed nebulous and ghostly shapes. The raw, chilly fogs that shrouded the damp and drearily dripping forest were known locally as ‘roaks’. Kitty and Rosemary entertained us with games using apples suspended on a string, which we tried to bite, or we played at apple bobbing where we tried to get one from a barrel of water using only our mouths. Kitty dressed us up as witches, ghouls, ghosts and vampires and made lanterns from hollowed-out turnips. It was scary in the darkness of the bothy with the lights out and we were glad when they lit the candles.
    I felt sad on seeing the number of trees that had been brought down by the gales as I looked on the fallen giants as my friends. On the afternoon of 5 November the gardener built us a bonfire from tree cuttings and deadwood, and Mam told me that, ‘In the distant past bones were burned to ward off evil spirits, hence the name “bonfires”.’
    We were only allowed to have a fire during the hours of daylight and the fallen softwood branches and twigs, known locally as ‘kids’, spat and burned well due to the resin in them. Once the fire was well established we roasted jacket potatoes and the delicious, golden butter dripped down onto our chins and bibs. The fire had to be put out before dusk. We then sat in the semi-darkness of the bothy and watched wide-eyed as Kitty lit sparklers and a small box of indoor fireworks that were the Stancliffe family’s leftovers from the previous year. Soon all fireworks were banned completely.
    Kitty was well able to cope with most of our childish problems and small emergencies and she had an uncanny knack of knowing when things were troubling us. She started getting us up to go to the toilet during the night, thus greatly reducing the bed-wetting. The weak and pitiful little boy (the runt of his family) who had had scabies used to tremble and shake on being taken from his bed during the chilly nights and Kitty felt so sorry for him. She would often wrap a warm blanket round his thin little body and hug him close until he settled, and she lavished on him that little bit of extra love and attention that she knew we all so desperately needed.
    With the air heavy with the odours of cabbage and onions, we would often catch sight of Mam in the kitchen amid great clouds of steam. There was a constant clatter of pots and pans, and rich, fragrant smells of tasty, savoury stews often assailed our nostrils making our mouths water. As she baked fresh bread and cakes, her hands were often white with flour and we came to associate her presence with the aroma of lovely food. More often than not, when I saw her she was smiling and she had a way of tilting her head as she spoke. She was to stay with us for just a few short, precious weeks and, as the time for her to leave drew near, there was a deep sadness in her speech, which is often the case before a parting. Her face was often red and blotchy from crying but we never saw the tears that undoubtedly dripped into the stew.
    Mam knew that we were being well fed and looked after and had settled in well, and that pleased her, but sadly for George and me, she was obliged to go. On the day of her departure there was much hugging and crying on both sides and she tried to hide her tears, but I could see the slight movement of her throat as she swallowed them. She was unable to afford the rent on Keldy Cottage for any length of time even though she had managed to sublet our house in