The silence came upon me in 1952, the day mum asked me to read out the telegram. I'd never seen a telegram before. What I did know was that unless you won on the premium bonds, they always brought bad news.
'Corporal Charles Cooper -- Stop. Missing -- Stop. Believed killed in action -Stop.'
Those awful words hung in the air of our small cottage, they bounced off the walls and broke our hearts.
He had said I had to be the man of the house when he left to fight, and now my words had made my mum and my sister's cry.
He was going to a place I'd never known. A place called Korea. I was sure it wasn't in Europe. Something died inside me when I knew dad would never be coming back from the forgotten war. I vowed never to speak again.
After a year, people gave up talking to me - they stopped trying to break my silence. "Poor Billy!" They'd say, "He's lost his marbles."
I turned eighteen in the June of '56', Ma said I had to stop lollygagging around the house and go help the menfolk in the fields.
That same day a man came to live in our house. He slept on dad's side of the bed - mum said we were to call him Uncle Tommy.
I liked working in the fields with the men. I was free to be myself, treated as one of their own. They were bold, brash, and muscular, and didn't care that I wouldn't talk. "Talk is for politicians and fisher-wives!" They'd boldly say, with laughter in their voices.
I worked until my muscles burned and my hands bled, but I never missed a day. The men sang and roared, and we drank rough cider that burnt my throat and made my head swim. When it wasn't raining, natures dust covered everything, including our half-naked bodies which glistened from hard labour and burning sun.
Insects buzzed amongst the hay dust that made the golden air as thick as a London smog.
House-martins flew above our heads taking flies on the wing, and Kestrels hovered on the hot air searching for homeless rodents.
