There they were around the wireless
waiting to listen to Lord Haw-Haw.
‘Quiet now, children!’ they said as usual:
‘Ssh, be quiet! We’re trying to listen.’
‘Germany calling!’ said Lord Haw-Haw.
I came out with it: ‘I love Hitler.’
They turned on me: ‘You can’t love Hitler!
Dreadful, wicked –’ (mutter, mutter,
the shocked voices buzzing together)–
‘Don’t be silly. You don’t mean it.’
I held out for perhaps five minutes,
a mini-proto-neo-Nazi,
six years old and wanting attention.
Hitler always got their attention;
now I had it, for five minutes.
Everyone at school loved someone,
and it had to be a boy or a man
if you were a girl. So why not Hitler?
Of course, you couldn’t love Lord Haw-Haw;
but Hitler–well, he was famous!
It might be easier to love Albert,
the boy who came to help with the milking,
but Albert laughed at me. Hitler wouldn’t:
one thing you could say for Hitler,
you never heard him laugh at people.
All the same, I settled for Albert.