即使是在战火连连的日子里,孩子们也总不忘在平安夜里挂出一只空袜子,因为不管明天收到的惊喜是大或小,晾出的是心中的希望……
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Christmas provided the greatest challenge of all. Turkeys were scarce and expensive throughout the war, and for an Oldham schoolgirl the 1)privations of wartime were summed up in her family’s Christmas dinner in 1944: mutton pie followed by wartime Christmas pudding made with 2)grated carrots. The official recipes also suggested grated apples and chopped 3)prunes and dried 4)elderberries to replace the missing dried fruit. The results were rarely very 5)palatable to those old enough to remember the real thing.
在所有的挑战中,圣诞节是最大的一个挑战。在战争时期,火鸡罕见又昂贵,而对于一个奥尔德姆市的女学生来说,战时的物资匮乏情况可以用1944年她家的圣诞节晚餐来概括:羊肉派,以及用碾碎的胡萝卜所做的战时圣诞布丁。官方的食谱也建议用苹果碎、碎西梅干和干接骨木果来代替所缺的果脯。但对于那些已经年长到足以记得真实美味的人来说,这些代替品基本上是得不到认同的。
One Manchester woman had even more reason than most to remember the great 6)blitz of December 1940, for “my mother’s house in Didsbury had had a direct hit and my mother-in-law’s house in Chilton, and they all 7)descended on me in my little flat. Our Christmas dinner consisted of corned beef 8)hash and wartime Christmas pudding, but we listened to the wireless, sang, played cards and generally had a good time.”
有一个曼彻斯特市的女人甚至比大多数人更有理由记得发生在1940年12月的大规模空袭,因为“我母亲在迪兹伯里区的房子被直接击中,同样遭难的还有我婆婆在奇尔顿的房子,于是他们全都突然大驾光临我那间小公寓。我们的圣诞大餐只有咸牛肉土豆泥和战时圣诞布丁,但我们在一起听收音机、唱歌、打牌,基本上玩得还挺开心。”
One might, if fortunate, find a Christmas tree, though one mother still remembers with regret that her child “never had the joy of seeing a Christmas tree decorated with electric lights.” But decorations of some kind could be 9)improvised, and one Essex woman’s happiest memory is of “sitting for hours with my small son making flowers and stars from silver paper to put on an otherwise empty Christmas tree.” Painted egg shells and fur cones and fragments of silver paper from processed cheese packets were also used as decorations. Angels and fairy dolls were made from stiff paper and the blue packets in which cotton wool was sold were opened out and cut in to strips for paper chains. Crackers were usually missing, but one East Ham family even succeeded in producing a version of their own from the cardboard centres of toilet rolls wrapped in 10)crepe paper with, inside each, a homemade paper hat and a firecracker left over from Home Guard exercises.
如果走运的话,说不定还能找到一棵圣诞树,虽然一位母亲仍然满心遗憾地记得,她的孩子“从没体验过那种看见一棵装饰着电灯的圣诞树的快乐。”但是某些装饰还是能够临时拼凑的。一位埃塞克斯郡的女人最快乐的记忆就是“和我的小儿子一起一坐就是几个小时,用银纸做花和星星,挂在一棵原来空荡荡的圣诞树上。”涂上颜色的蛋壳和毛球,还有从加工乳酪的包装上弄来的银纸碎片也都被用来做装饰。天使和精灵娃娃都是用硬纸做的,而卖棉绒用的蓝色外包装也被拆开并剪成条状做成纸链。一般说来是买不到爆竹的,不过一个东哈姆区的家庭甚至成功自制了一个他们自家版本的爆竹,他们用绉纸包住厕纸卷中间的硬纸圈,然后在每个爆竹中间塞进一顶自制的纸帽子和一个国民自卫军训练时剩下的鞭炮。
Few Christmas stockings were left unfilled despite the war. A Sheffield girl—two when the war began; eight when it finished—remembers asking in her letter to Santa Claus for “any little thing you can spare.” “This touched my mother, but at the time I couldn’t see why. It just seems logical.”
尽管正处于战争时期,但几乎没有哪家的圣诞袜里是空空如也的。一个谢菲尔德市的女孩——当战争开始时她只有两岁,而战争结束时已经八岁了——还记得在她写给圣诞老人的信里请求得到“任何你能够匀出来的小东西。”“这让我母亲非常感动,但在那时候我却不明白为什么。因为会这样做似乎是挺自然的事。”
A Surrey girl, six in 1939, remembers being put to bed one Christmas Eve in the shelter in the cellar and leaving detailed instructions on the dining room table to Santa Claus lest he fail to locate this unconventional bedroom.
一个萨里郡的女孩,1939年时还只有六岁,依然记得在某个圣诞节的前夜虽然被安顿在地下庇护所中睡觉,却还不忘在饭厅的桌子上给圣诞老人留下了详细的路线指示,唯恐他找不到这个非传统的卧室。
A Liverpool woman remembers how another little girl was made happy that year despite the war. “Christmas, 1941: The men were away except my elder brother, which [who] served in the First World War and was in the Home Guard. My daughter had asked Father Christmas for a doll’s house. We looked at each other in dismay. Then my brother found an old bird cage. During the 11)raids, he worked on it, found bits of cardboard for the walls. The office wastepaper basket provided an old file, which made the roof, and he painted the floors. We hunted for all kinds of bits and pieces and the miracle was achieved. A piece of 12)hessian dyed red, fringed, made an elegant carpet. Oh, never will I forget her face that dark Christmas morning and her childish voice piping ’13)There’ll be bluebirds over the white cliffs of Dover’ as she saw those tables and chairs, tiny pictures made out of cigarette cards, her cries of joy as she discovered each new thing.”
一个利物浦市的女人还记得那年虽然正值战时,有一个小女孩被逗得开心不已。“1941年圣诞节:除了我哥哥以外,所有男人都不在,我哥哥曾参加过一战,那时加入了国民自卫军。我女儿曾向圣诞老人许愿要一间娃娃屋。我们沮丧地彼此相望。后来我哥哥找到了一个旧鸟笼。在敌机突袭期间,他也忙着做娃娃屋,找到了一些硬纸板做娃娃屋的墙壁。从办公室的废纸篓里找到了一个旧文件夹,用它做成了屋顶,然后他还给地板上了色。我们竭力搜寻各种零碎玩意,最后奇迹实现了。一块粗麻布被染红、缝上流苏,做成了一块雅致的地毯。噢,我永远都忘不了——在那个漆黑的圣诞节凌晨,当我女儿看到那些用香烟卡做的桌椅和小画时,她那张笑脸和她用稚嫩的嗓音尖声唱着‘蓝鸟飞过多佛白崖’的情景,还有每发现一个新物件时那一阵阵惊喜的叫声。”
On the whole, very small children probably came off best. Rag dolls with button eyes could fairly readily be made from old stockings. Old coats could be converted into stuffed animals. Sea boot stockings,14)unraveled, could be re-knitted as teddy bears. And in one family in Somerset, an old pair of gray 15)flannel trousers proved the basis for a pull-along elephant. Keen toy-makers 16)hoarded every scrap of material, if not for sewing outside then for stuffing within. One family even saved the small plugs of cotton wool in the tops of Aspirin bottles. And in one Yorkshire factory, toy-hungry fathers discovered that its basic product, round doorknobs, could serve a new use as yoyos. A Birmingham builder, posted to London to help in repairs during the flying bomb raids, remembers that his workmates and himself [him] “made 17)kaleidoscopes in our spare time using bits of 18)tinfoil, chips of coloured broken glass, etc. And perhaps an orange.”
总体来说,年纪越小的孩子越容易得到满足。用旧长袜很容易就能做出带纽扣眼睛的碎布娃娃。旧大衣可以转变成填充动物玩偶。水手靴长袜拆开了就可以被重新编结成泰迪熊。而一个在萨默塞特郡的家庭甚至用一条旧法兰绒裤子为基础做了一个能拖着走的大象。热心的玩具制造者们积存每一点材料,不是用来缝外皮就是做填充物。有个家庭甚至将塞在阿司匹林瓶子顶部的小块棉絮都存了下来。而在约克郡的一间工厂,缺乏玩具的父亲们发现,那里最基本的产品——球形门把手——有个新用途,可以被做成悠悠球。一位伯明翰市的建筑工在飞弹空袭期间被委派到伦敦以帮助进行修缮工作,他还记得他的工友们和他自己“在我们的空余时间里用一些锡纸、彩色的碎玻璃片,或者甚至用桔子什么的,做成万花筒。”
Despite all their parents’ effort, many children did miss some of the customary pleasures during the war. One mother still feels sad that her daughter’s only dolls were of the cardboard type with cutout clothes. The normal china type were simply 19)beyond her means.
虽然父母们都已竭尽全力,但许多孩子在战争时期还是错过了一些寻常的欢乐。一位母亲至今仍然觉得难过,因为她女儿仅有的娃娃都是用剪碎的衣服和硬纸板做的。那种平常的瓷娃娃她实在是买不起。
Inevitably too, the war deprived children of the pleasure of spending their pocket money as they wished. A woman from Hawick in Roxburyshire witnessed its effects on one small boy in 1944. He had called into the village post office to buy a comic but was told, “They haven’t come in this week.” He then asked for sweets and was told, “No sweeters either.” And after further questioning, “Mmm, not even chewing gum.” At this he asked for a penny stamp, walked out and stuck it on the pillar box outside, remarking, “That Hitler!”
战争也不可避免地剥夺了孩子们随心所欲地支配零花钱的乐趣。一个罗克斯勃洛郡霍伊克镇的女人在1944年亲眼目睹了战争对一个小男孩的影响。他来到村里的邮局想要买一本连环画杂志,却被告知:“它们这个星期还没到。”然后他想要买糖果,却又被告知:“也没有糖果了。”接着他又问下去,“嗯,甚至连口香糖也没有了。”这样的话,他只好要了一张一便士的邮票,走出门去,把它贴在外面的邮筒上,说道:“都怪那个希特勒!”
翻译:小狐
