Fireweed on the Bomb Sites

Fireweed 

I grew up in England after the second World War, fireweed or Rosebay Willowherb was common on old bomb sites and ruins.  It prefers to grow in areas which have been scorched  and the rosy purple flowers are perfect for bees and other insects to feed on.  I made this painting after thinking about my early years and the different wild flowers which I was familiar with.

 

 

My brother was born during the war and my Mother said that he never slept at night for the first two years of his life because of the constant air raids over the south coast and the nights spent in air raid shelters. This is a photo of one of the early meetings between by brother and father, my father was on leave from the Fleet Air Arm but to my brother he is a stranger and he wonders who he is.

 

 After the war and when I was born we lived in this cottage, we were deemed to be living in overcrowded conditions by the health authorities as there were now four of us in two rooms, my parents were made to move.  The house we went to was larger and because food  and petrol were still rationed my parents were able to keep goats for milk, hens and a pig in the back garden. This seemed to work well until the goats ate the petrol coupons which they found poking out of someones pocket.  My mother managed to buy two bananas, she wrote our names on them so that my father would not eat them, he probably deserved them more than we did.

 

 

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All images copyright Frances Jill Studd 2015