The Day I met a pin up Queen

 

I'm currently writing a series of short stories about people over seventy, Here are the notes on Diana, an incredible woman I met in Eastbourne who has since passed.

 

I find it hard to look at the pictures of my breasts. Too large for a child, too large for anyone.

 They had cruel smiles those men.   I just looked up at the sun and tried to block them out, let it bleach me out until I could feel nothing. She’d worn lipstick and wanted to go with them, she didn’t mind their rough way of kissing and the dirt under their nails. I’d never had the chance to find out whether or not I even liked boys. On that that day there were six of them.

When they finished with me they left me sitting on a bench looking at the ducks on the pond. I’d taken off my tights and hidden them in one of those bins the children put their ice cream wrappers in. One of them had told me that with tits like mine I could be a pin up queen.

They took  photographs of me in the altogether, I cooked eggs and bacon in my knickers and bra for a man who owned a revue bar, he promised I could dance in the theatre. I walked out onto that stage feeling like the goddess of love, only to realise that they were only there to have a wank. Every man I ever met had a twisted smile.

During the Blitz I used to sit under the table in the children’s home as the bombs fell across London. Most of the other children were deaf. Yes, I can still remember how to sign, some things never leave you. What did I do when I left the home? I went to prison. It wasn’t uncommon for girls like me in those days.

Why did she have to die on me like that, my mother? Why even now do they seek me out?

No, no one noticed that I came home without my tights, there were the little ones to look after.

I’ve been thinking i'd like someone to help me write my story, he told me no one would be interested in a tart.

I find it hard to look at the pictures of my breasts. Too large for a child, too large for anyone. Pin up queen, google it and you will find me. They find new ways but i'm sure the dirty laugh sounds the same. Still laughing with their cruel mouths.

Can you make them interested in me? Me. I did not go under. Despite everything I outlived them all. What shall we call it? ‘Hurdles and Girdles’.

The sun is so bright today. I stare into it hoping it will bleach me out. Out in the park children are laughing as they feed the ducks.