4

In the last week of April I was given a weekend pass, so I went to stay with my parents in their house in north London. One of my sisters, Sara, had joined the Auxiliary Nursing Service and was being posted to a hospital in Liverpool. She was also passing through that weekend, before heading up north. We were concerned for her because at that time the Blitz was at its height and the seaports were being attacked regularly. Churchill was still in full control and everywhere you went you heard and saw the effect he was having. Germany could never beat Britain so long as that extraordinary mood of bravery and resilience survived. Sara and I felt stirred by it, but also humbled. You could only do a bit yourself. Dad took us down to a part of Green Lanes that had been flattened in a recent night raid. We walked around for a while, looking in horror at the damage to the area we knew so well, where we grew up. On the Saturday night the whole family went out to a pub, followed by a dance.

My dad was a sports fan and over lunch on Sunday, shortly before I was due to set off on the slow journey back to the airfield, he mentioned that he’d seen our squadron mentioned in one of the newspapers. A former sporting hero had become a bomber pilot with the RAF and was based at Tealby Moor. He asked me if I knew who they meant. Of course, without more clues than that it could have been anyone. Dad said he’d kept the newspaper and he started hunting around for it, determined to show me and to find out the name of the man. He was still searching when I had to leave.

The following evening, when I was back at the base, Dad phoned me from a callbox. His voice was faint and we were limited to three minutes, but his excitement was almost tangible.

‘That chap I told you about,’ he shouted down the line. ‘His name is Sawyer, J. L. Sawyer. Do you know him?’

‘JL’s our pilot, Dad,’ I said. ‘I told you that ages ago, when I first got here. He’ll be in that crew photograph I sent you.’

‘Name wouldn’t have meant anything to me then. But listen, I’ve been looking him up in a book in the library and he took a bronze for Great Britain.’

‘A bronze medal?’ I said stupidly. ‘Like in the Olympics?’

‘That’s right. He was out in Berlin in 1936. The Jerries came first, but it was a hard race and we came in a good third. Has he ever talked about it?’

‘No, never. Not to me, at any rate.’

‘Why don’t you ask him? That was something, going over to Germany like that and winning a few medals.’

‘What event was he in, Dad? Was he a runner, or what?’

‘He was a rower. Coxless pairs. It all comes back to me. I heard it on the wireless at the time. It was him and his brother, identical twins called Sawyer. They did well for England, they did.’

‘Does it say what his brother’s name is?’ I said.

‘They didn’t put first names in the book. All the competitors are there under their initials. That’s the funny thing about those two: they had the same initials. “J. L.” That’s what they were both called.’

‘Does it say one of them was called Jack?’

‘No . . . just “J. L.” for them both,’ my father said, but our con­ver­sation ended peremptorily when the money ran out.