TR&W Issue 20

www.teachwire.net | 27 C L AS SROOM AC T I V I T I E S Chapter 2, pages 10–11 10 –11 Hide and Seek: a Bletchley Park mystery I added this detail to remind readers that the signposts had been removed, and to help them visualise the scene in this flashback. I wanted to create a circular pattern in this flashback, beginning and ending with light, allowing the flashback to recede, much like the ‘gloom of the tunnel’. The image of a doll’s house in this flashback gives the reader a sense of the scale of damage, as well the powerlessness people would have felt during the Blitz. Readers will be familiar with photos and reports about the Blitz, but I wanted to make this personal and zoom in on the chaos, through Ned’s eyes. This continues the link, as well as showing what makes Ned tick. I’ve used the telescope detail to link Ned on the mountain with Ned in the flashback on his journey to Wales. And here’s another link to Ned’s affinity with astronomy, which helps highlight this theme throughout the flashback. Ned’s attitude here echoes the mood of the moment, and how people were encouraged not to dwell on things. Extract from A circle of torchlight shone towards them, dazzling Ned, and making him think of Sirius, the brightest star, also known as the Dog Star. People thought the North Star was the brightest, but this wasn’t true. He’d borrowed books on the solar system from the library in town, when his mother had taken him. And his grandfather had given him an old pocket telescope. Ned had shoved the telescope into the pocket of his shorts before his mother rushed him to the station to catch the train. After many trains, they’d eventually reached Birmingham, where they’d walked through the blitzed streets, navigating by pubs and cinemas and other landmarks. He wondered if he’d ever be able to navigate by the stars, like sailors did. It wasn’t until he had to step out of the path of air-raid wardens that he realised he’d been feeling sorry for himself, and quickly pulled himself together. The wardens were working their way through the rubble of a building to find people, dead or alive. Although he’d seen the pictures in the papers and heard the reports on the radio, Ned wasn’t ready to see the ruins of strangers’ lives. Yet as they passed one bombed-out house, Ned had found he couldn’t take his eyes off it. The front was ripped open, and a bedroom exposed, like a doll’s house from a horror story. Splinters of plaster and jagged edges of bricks were all that was left of a church. His mother gently suggested he recite the names of the planets aloud, which helped distract him, as it always did. Then they’d caught another train and somehow, finally, arrived in Wales. As the circle of light got brighter, the gloom of the tunnel gradually receded.