FUNERALS
IN CHELMSFORD
‘I
am sorry if I irritate you
With my hallucinations’
Says Frances
‘No need to be sorry’
I tell her
One of the other patients
A Russian named Serge
Is reading one of the tabloid newspapers
‘It seems to me that man
Prefers to know
About the truth of the world’
Says Frances
‘Did you know
My father was an AA Warden
During the war
And never liked
To attend funerals in Chelmsford’
With my hallucinations’
Says Frances
‘No need to be sorry’
I tell her
One of the other patients
A Russian named Serge
Is reading one of the tabloid newspapers
‘It seems to me that man
Prefers to know
About the truth of the world’
Says Frances
‘Did you know
My father was an AA Warden
During the war
And never liked
To attend funerals in Chelmsford’
Ardleigh Ward,
The Lakes Mental
Health Centre,
Colchester, February
2011
Chelmsford in about 30 miles (48 km) northeast of London. An important center of light engineering war production, it was frequently attacked by the Germans in World War II. On 13 May 1943 Luftwaffe bombing raids hit Chelmsford, leaving more than 50 people dead and making nearly 1,000 residents homeless. But the worst single loss of life took place on 19 December 1944, when a Vergeltungswaffe 2 (V2) rocket killed 39 and injured 138, 47 seriously.
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