In The Small Hours: The Lime Tree
John Brian Leaver tells of a glorious wartime practical joke.
Our elderly air-raid warden, Pilkie, was the bane of our neighbourhood.
He would brook not so much as a sliver of light. He patrolled his patch with military precision, medal ribbons on a proud chest. It was said they had been earned at Sion Cop, and later at Beaumont Hamel. He responded unfailingly to the Luftwaffe's calling card, the nightly siren, triggered with monotonous regularity at 6.55 pm from a distant steeple.
Abutting Pilkie's back garden gate was his manicured vegetable plot which also contained a well-shaped lime tree of tender years which was perhaps 35 feet in height. The plan was simple enough. In spite of there being a one penny return on a used jam jars at the local Co-Op, and therefore at great sacrifice, we local lads were committed, in great secrecy, to a plan. Jam jars were collected and stored in a disused garage. So were night-light candles and string. During the early winter months each jar was fitted-out with a candle and a string handle.
Christmas Day was almost upon us when we launched Operation Pilkie. Our chosen night was as black as Old Nick's armpit. Quietly, we dressed Pilkie's lime tree with twinkling lights, a sure invitation to a 500 pounder.
What we hadn't anticipated was the quiet beauty of what we had created. The lime had become a Christmas tree. The candles in the jars spread a soft blue light through the cold and frosty night air. It was as if myriad fireflies were conveying a message of peace and good will to all men.
Faithfully the warning siren wailed. We scattered to hide, anticipating the drone of Boche engines overhead within minutes.
Pilkie's back door sneck rattled. Then there was a stream of invective that could only have been honed in the trenches.
No bomb fell on his tree that night, only heavy disapprobation from parents offended by the use of such language on a Sunday.
It took Pilkie quite some time to snuff out the last of the fireflies with his stirrup pump. The Luftwaffe were long gone by the time the last candle was extinguished, leaving behind them a deep red glow in the night sky as Manchester burned.
