The story unfolds in the mid-50s, in a poor suburb of London, when UK is recovering from the negative effects of the Second World War. There are many buildings destroyed by bombs, and people lack of many basic things.
The characters of the story are a gang of boys who tray to amuse themselves by playing mischief like taking the bus without paying for the tickets. This gang use to meet on a building site used as a car-park. They decide what to do by voting the ideas presented by their leader, Blackie. It’s interesting this way of deciding what to do. I think that democracy was very appreciated at those days, even by the boys, after a War that, if lost, could have ended with this political system.
It’s interesting to see as new ideas can change the leader. So the new recruit, Trevor, known as T. (Trevor is a name used by high class and sounds funny in that poor suburb) replaced the ancient leader, Blackie, by proposing a new and attractive activity: to destroy the house leant on one side of the car-park. The house is owned by Mr Thomas, known as Old Misery, and is an old house built by the same architect that built Saint Paul Cathedral in the eighteenth century. Old Misery is a constructor, but he doesn’t want to spend anything for conserving his house. So he hasn’t current water in the house because he hasn’t abilities as a plumber. So he has to use a loo situated in a corner of the garden, perhaps it is a septic tank.
T. knows that Old Misery is going away for two days during the August Bank Holiday, and they will have enough time for destroying the old house. As T.’s father was an architect, he has some notions of architecture, and otherwise he has visited the house and knows it well. They need some tools and each of them will take some. They work very hard and the house is destroyed at the end.
Which is the reason for destroying the house? I think the boys are bored, they haven’t anything to do. No money, no cinema, no sports, nothing to do. To destroy the house will be a big action. They will reach the fame, they will be important, known in their suburb. As the author says, destruction after all is a form of creation. They are looking for their self-affirmation, finding themselves, by doing an important thing.
I’ve liked the story because is an interesting point of view about the boyhood and the needing of doing something important as a way of auto affirmation in a world that offers so limited possibilities to people. The boys don’t want to do crimes (they think to destroy a house isn’t forbidden), so they don’t want to pinch anything because they’re not criminals.
I knew the meaning of loo before as an informal way of saying toilet or bathroom. I didn’t know the word “pinch”, but I could deduce it by the sense. The down platform is the platform of the underground, where people went down during the aerial attacks. The Blue Boar is perhaps the name of a pub. I think The Wormsley Common Empire was the humoristic name of the poor suburb. Bomb-sites was the place where felt bombs during last war. Incendiaries are bombs that produce fire. The blitz is an aerial attack. Southend is a town on the cost on the estuary of the Thames, not far from London, used as a holiday village. Nowadays there is there one of the airports of London.
