by Hazel Griggs
read 17th October 2015 in Orpington
One day my next door neighbour Mr Ward offered me a Day Old chick which was not eating and would die. I accepted this baby and carefully nursed it back to health. I hand fed it, anointed its emaciated little body with olive oil which allowed its first tiny feathers to grow. I was told it was a female which is known as a pullet, this meant that one day it would lay eggs, welcome news in these war time days of food rationing. My father cut a hole in his shed as a front door for the little chick to go to sleep and later on to lay its eggs.
As it grew and the comb which is its fleshy top of its head became bright red I named her Cherry. She became very very tame and even when she was out of my sight running loose in our huge garden she would come running to me when I called her name or whistled.
She loved me picking her up to be talked to and stroked. I would sit on the seat at the top of the garden cuddling her on my lap. Her adult plumage was white, and she looked so smart with her bright red comb.
I was fifteen years old and the second world was becoming dangerous, this meant that we must all dig our own air raid shelters in our gardens between air raids. We lived in a row of houses running at the back of our huge garden and were very friendly with all our neighbours, calling out and talking to them as we all dug our air raid shelters.
It was a lovely hot summers day as we helped our Dad dig, this was very difficult with the heavy clay soil. Suddenly we all heard this sound of a cockerel crowing…..there was Cherry crowing and crowing away, Cherry was a boy, a cockerel, never to lay eggs. You never heard such laughter as all the neighbours, my sister and brother and my parents and I laughed and laughed. There was Cherry standing at the highest point of the air raid shelter, crowing and crowing!
Later on I found a kind farmer who would look after Cherry because we could not have him crowing and annoying the neighbours. I used to cycle over to see him and he seemed quite happy in his new home. He still had the strange limp affecting one leg from his early illness, and he still remembered me.