What would you do?

I have three treats for you today.

When Mavis's Shoe was at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, I asked the kids who came to imagine what would happen if some bombs came down at just after 9pm that night. I asked them to think specifically about what they would do. And I asked them to write something and send it to me. These are the results.

This was a very difficult task for me because nearly all the pieces were very very good. I therefore chose three winners, first, second and third. Their stories are below. I hope you enjoy them.

1st

The Bombing Begins
by Caitlin Paterson, p.7, Broomhouse Primary

I was in my house with mum and dad. I was in my room sitting on my giant bed texting my best friend. I was feeling fantastic, happy, cheerful and great. I never saw my best friend for a year and she was coming back to visit for a week. I was excited to see her.

She was coming to my house to visit. She reached the doorstep and the ground started to shake madly. I told her to come in. We looked out the window there were bomber planes
everywhere and me, mum, dad and Sarah ran outside to the bomb shelter. Just when we got in the bomb shelter, the bombs started going off. I smelt the disgraceful smoke and heard loud crashing sounds we could smell the burning metal. We were petrified.

My mum and dad ran out of the shelter and then I went out to look for them. I could not find them. I looked everywhere for them. I tried shouting “Mum! Dad! Where are you? You need to comeback!”
I saw them walking.
Cabang !
A bomb went straight through them. My eyes filled with tears and the street was filled with flames.

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2nd

World War
by Ali Eltom, P7, Broomhouse Primary
“Oh no,” I said to my friend Lewis. He was beating me at my own video games again. We were playing Call Of Duty Modern Warfare 3. All of a sudden I heard a giant roar in the sky but I ignored it…

Bombs started falling. People were screaming. Men were shouting “Someone help my family”. The only thing going through my mind was “What’s going on out there?” I ran to my window and could hear the rubber of my shoes thudding on the ground with humungous bangs. Me and Lewis ran outside and explored. I worriedly walked across the street. My brain was filled with different emotions, fear, anger and worry.

I thought I should go looking for my mum. Lewis asked “How are you going to find her with all this bombing?” I ignored him. We were walking and I heard a faint scream. I ran to see what was happening. I saw my mum sitting there she never opened her eyes I thought she was dead. I screamed “Wake up, Mum, wake up !!!!!!!” People in military suits came and took me away. I was screaming and shouting. They stuck a needle into my skin and I fell asleep.

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3rd

Bombing in Denny
by Brandon Wilson, 15, Hillside School

One morning I woke up in a nice, wet and windy Scottish summers day. I went down the stairs to the kitchen to make a greasy squared sausage roll with fried onions and a bit of HP brown sauce. After finishing my breakfast I headed to catch the post office at 9am to get my mum’s money for the tea that night.

I took my dog Lehgend. He is a German Shepherd, only 7 months old. I was walking casually down to the town. I was only two minutes from the post office and my dog was going mad. He was barking, jumping, and staring up into the sky. The sky was still and very grey. I shouted, “Shut up” to my dog, and suddenly I heard in the distance a roar of engines. All around me there was a deathly silence.

The Post Office shutters went down and everyone ran for shelter. All of a sudden these planes were surrounding the buildings in the town centre. Bang, crash - the sound of concrete and glass smashing and falling all over them. I heard the screams of panic. Children crying. Dogs barking. Everyone ran for their lives, with their hands over their heads. Fear on their faces, as they saw the flashing lights in the sky. The smoke and dust was up into my nose, burning and choking me and the people around me. All I felt was dust, tiny, sharp bits of debris. Suddenly, all I heard again was silence. The buildings stopped moving. All I could hear now were sobs and crying and dogs whimpering. People were helping each other to safety.
I started to make my way back to my family to see if they were safe and well. But I struggled to find my way back home because all the paths and roads had burned out cars. It was all smokey in the air around the streets. Finally, me and my dog were back in my house. My family were glad to see us. They thought I was hurt, but I only had a cut arm and a bruised leg. My house was not too badly damage but next door’s had crumbled down. It was just a big pile of rubble. We were extremely lucky that we were not hurt and our house was still standing. We all sat down and stood in the one room, waiting for everything to blow over (said my mum).

Lenny Lives

This is exciting. I’ve just spent another day with the human embodiment of my fictional character, Lenny Gillespie. This is the actor Lisa Farren who will be joining me on Monday 20th August at the Edinburgh International Book Festival for a schools event in the Peppers Tent for Mavis's Shoe. Can’t wait. We will have action and noise, including some especially loud explosions. There will be an ARP helmet to try on and some very interesting slides (in my opinion).

Lisa makes an excellent Lenny. She seems to catch what Lenny is going through with extraordinary sensitivity. It’s the most peculiar thing hearing someone you made up saying the words you made up for them. Last year at the time of the launch we did a grander version using five actors and a sound technician. Lisa was part of that too. It worked well. This year we are just me and Lisa and it feels tight and fluent.

The picture above is last year’s cast in WH Smith in Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow, where we did a three person version. That's Lisa/Lenny on the right with all the scars. The people of WH Smith were lovely and so no doubt were the pipe band playing outside the door, but the two in such close proximity were unusual and difficult. But as you can see we survived and conquered.

Edinburgh Book Festival for Schools

It's here at last: The Edinburgh International Book Festival's schools programme. You can download it here. You'll find a mugshot of me and Mavis's Shoe on page 9. The event is on Monday the 20th August at 12.30pm and I'm very excited about it already, as I'm sure you can imagine. Make sure you book soon or alert any teachers you might know. It's a one-off never to be repeated event.

It's great to know so many young people are reading Mavis's Shoe as well as older people who experienced the Clydebank Blitz or whose parents and grandparents did. I'm too young to have lived through it myself but my parents both talked about the war a lot when I was growing up, as did my grandparents. But no-one talked about being bombed, because no-one in my family was. But that doesn't mean they weren't hugely affected by six years of being separated from parents for lengthy periods, travelling alone on trains across country at an early age, hunger, insecurity, fear and all the other privations of wartime.

These things and worse happened here in Britain and across Europe and, sad to say, all these worse things are still happening around the world. That's why I'm so pleased so many young people are reading Mavis's Shoe and learning what war is really like for ordinary people on the ground. No-one's going to try and stop it if they don't know how bad it gets. Did I mention I'm pleased about young people reading Mavis's Shoe?