Stories from the War

On Saturday we went to a friend's birthday party in Blackheath. Upon arriving we were handed a bunch of sweets and some twine and ordered to "Tie them to the tree in the garden!" We assumed we'd have only one tree to choose from, as this would be the case in our typical tiny garden. But when we went down the stairs and out through a dark scary passage we found ourselves in the hugest garden in all of London (maybe not really) where our hostess's mother, Esme, was outdoors tending the disposable barbecues whilst drinking some whine and smoking a cigarette.
Jeremy and I got to talking to Esme as we tied sweets to multiple trees and flowering vines and even a random knife stuck in the garden wall (we chose not to ask how it got there) and she told us about living in Brixton immediately after the war when she was small and how they used to play cricket in bombed out buildings and how it seemed like the most magical place in the world to her. She asked us if any of our relatives were involved in the war and I told her how my grandfather and three of his brothers joined up on the same day and a recruiter went down the line of them pointing to each saying "Army, Air Force, Navy, Marines!" And they each went their separate ways.
Jeremy said that his grandfather was an army dentist but never left the US and then explained how just his Bubbie and her sister and their cousins Paula and Joe made it out of Austria and the rest of the family died. And Esme told us how she and her siblings were evacuated from London at the start of the war and that most children were sent by themselves with their names and addresses and all pertinent information pinned to their jackets but her mother refused to leave her children. So they left her father in the city where he helped care for horses, and they all shipped out to the country where they lived on the edges of a grand estate with all the others who'd been evacuated, including lots of Jewish German children who'd been sent out of Germany just in time.
One of these German Jewish children was a little boy named Nathanial and at age 5 he was Esme's first love. One day the 2 of them walked together to the vicarage garden and he picked her as many flowers as he could and filled up her doll pram with blossoms then the two of them walked into town arm in arm together where the vicar shouted at Nathanial for stealing the flowers. Esme said that as it happened all she could think was "Why are they yelling at him? He's just done the most wonderful thing!"
I think that this is possibly the best story I have heard in a very long time. Possibly ever.