War Torn

15th of July 1940

There are three things I fear most in life: War, Hitler and fear itself.

There are three things I want in life: World peace, Mama to be happy and money to fulfil our basic needs.

The thing I want more than anything else in the world is for Papa to come home from war.

My name is Eleanor Jones. I am 10 years old and my papa is at war. We used to be rich. We had everything you could ever ask for in the 1930’s. We had a telephone and we lived in a big house. I had friends and everything was going fine. I was nine when Papa went to war and we lost everything. Mama didn’t talk to anyone or even me. We had to downsize our house because Mama used all our money trying to gain contact with Papa. We now live in a rustic sticks and mud cottage with limited items and no money.

Our family comes from England. When Mama married Papa they migrated to Australia. They brought Pa with them as Ma had just passed from Influenza.

Mama was fine when Papa went to war but when Pa died two months later she became extremely withdrawn. The doctors diagnosed this as depression, but we couldn’t afford the proper medication. One week later I was diagnosed with Influenza, and once again we couldn’t afford the medication. With a little help from the town we were able to buy them and I recovered.

Living in a small country town still means we hear all the latest news about the war. The kids are always talking about Hitler and how he’s killing a lot of soldiers and how the war has been named World War II. My pa went to World War I. He lost his left arm to an Australian soldier that couldn’t aim.

Two days ago we got a letter saying that Papa was going to come back to Australia but he was going to be at the Sydney hospital. If you ride on horseback from my house to Sydney it would take two days, but walking there would take a long time. We don’t have any horses so we can’t go and see him in hospital.

It will take a few days for Papa to be shipped home and a few weeks for him to recover but hopefully he will come back home with Mama and I.


23rd of July 1940
Things come and things go. World War I came and went. World War II came and suddenly Papa was gone. He was shot in the leg and he died from blood poisoning.

Now there are 4 things I fear in life:
World War II, Hitler, fear itself and hope.
I fear hope because hope killed Papa. I hoped and hoped for him to come home and the one chance I had for him to come home, I blew by hoping.

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