The Show Must Go On
Heroes Remember
So the rest of my leave there we
decided things quietened down
the next night, they didn’t bomb and
then the next night we decided
to go to the theatre which was a
couple of blocks up the street.
So we go to see a picture up there,
I forget even what the picture was.
But when I went in to the entrance they
stopped me and they said,
“At the end of the program we ask all
service men that are here to represent and
you are Canada which is really something,”
They hadn’t seen a Canadian around Birmingham.
“Would you come up on the stage where
they play God Save the King and
all that at the end of the program?”
“Yah, okay!”
So the bombing is going on all the
time that we’re there so
I figured it’s further away.
So it comes time and all the
audience is there and the picture has
ended and they come up and
they introduce all the troops,
the fighting men of England.
So we go up on the stage and
I’m standing there and Tommy Handley,
you know, the big comedian there,
he’s next to me, he’s on the stage,
that’s one reason I went there and
a piano boy and he’s got my arm and
we’re swinging and (inaudible), sing song yah.
And the woman beside me, I forget her name,
she’s one of the actresses and she says,
“Hang on to me, I’m scared to death”
I said, “Why, they haven’t hit close.”
She says, “The whole top of the roof
of the theatre is on fire,
they just dropped a stick
of incendiaries on us.”
And they have asked us to stay here and
carry on and as we are singing the people
are leaving because if we yell that we’ve
been hit there’s going to be panic,
people killed.
So we had to sit there and wait until
everybody waltzed out, they didn’t
know until they got out that the
theatre was on fire.
And then we made a run for
it out the back door,
the whole damn roof was
blazing when we were there.
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