June 2002

Nomination: Like the train’s beat [1943–4. From The North Ship]

When I first read it, the image leapt to life, so much so that I dreamed of writing a novel in which a character would see a young woman, somehow see her as familiar, and later learn that her mother was a Polish airgirl in England during the war… Reading it again now, it’s the last four lines which speak strongest.

Stephen Brown