Table Manners

I remember vividly that as a small boy I used to be lifted up by my father on to the kitchen table to dance with him. But one day it was dismantled, taken away and replaced by a wooden table that had spent the war in our attic, together with eggs in waterglass and an assortment of tins of food. I was strictly forbidden to dance on the 'new' table, which I remember upset me. After all, to a three-to-four-year-old boy, a table was a table and as much fun to dance on as any other. What I didn't realise until many years later is that the 'old' table had been a Morrison shelter to protect us inside the house during air raids. The top had been of sheet steel and perfectly capable of supporting our weight while we danced.

Postscript.

The wooden table supported me quite well too, as I found when I scrambled up on to it via a chair when the coast was clear, or so I thought. But the coast wasn't clear and I was spanked for my disobedience.

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