A to Z Challenge: V Is For Victory

V Is For Victory

Earlier this week I wrote a post about things that have no value without knowing their back story.  This is another post about one of those things. 

When my mother died, one of the things I saved was an assortment of rocks and shells my mother collected as mementos.  Each object has a story, but because today's theme is "V,"  I will tell the story of the V rock.

My mother was English and as a child she lived in Harrow with her family.  During World War II her parents sent her to boarding school at the Marist Convent in Hythe to get her away from the bombing in London.  She had an aunt who was a nun there (Auntie Euphemia.) 


One day my mother went to the village with a group of students.  A German plane buzzed the town and fired its guns.  The girls all safely avoided the hail of bullets.  Later that day my mother wrote a letter to her parents and shared her afternoon adventure.  That was the end of boarding school for my mother.  Her parents brought her back to London; even with the Blitz, they thought it would be safer for her at home.

Before she left Hythe my mother went for a walk on the beach and found the rock that now sits with the other mementos in my back bedroom.  She told me that when she found the rock she knew with a certainty that England would win the war.  It was a sign.

V is for Victory.