Little did I realise when I awoke on the morning of the Queen’s Jubilee, that I would end the day

staring death in the face.

Triskaidekaphobia means fear of the number 13. I had heard it said that 13 was an

unlucky number. One to be avoided. The number of diners around the table at the last supper.

The number of gods enjoying an intimate dinner party until Loki, the thirteenth guest, gate

crashed and plunged the world into darkness. The number on the cards wishing me a Happy

Birthday.

The Queen had unhelpfully chosen to hold her jubilee celebrations on my 13th birthday.

Had she been more thoughtful and held her shindig a few days earlier, I would have been 12. I

would have been spending many happy hours constructing a replica papier mâché crown. I

would have been throwing together a fetching ensemble of red, white and blue to wear to the

street party. Had she resisted the temptation to celebrate at all and waited a couple of decades for

me to grow, I would have been decorating soggy-bottomed fairy cakes with splodges of icing and

wearing…another ensemble of red, white and blue to her next Jubilee. As it was, I was 13 and

understood that I had reached an age where the notion of street parties, heritage and the Queen

should make me shiver.

It wasn’t even our street party. Had we attended our party, I would have known the

children whose innocent pleasure I intended to disdain and have been on ‘Aunty’ and ‘Uncle’

terms with the neighbours I planned to scorn. However, Mum had decided we should accept the

invitation of the Cohen family and grace their party with our presence. Apart from Daisy Cohen,

Moll, her sister, and Pearl, their mum, I didn’t know anyone. And no one knew me.

Painfully shy, I spent the day hovering by a trestle table. It was laden with enough sugary

snacks to rival Wonka’s chocolate factory. Daisy, still 12, and Moll, only 10, partied with their

gang, children they played out with every night of their lives. Daisy’s gran, Edna, didn’t know

anyone either. She stuck by my side, eating sandwiches and chatting about the war, chatting

about post-war Britain and eating mini sausages, into late afternoon. We were, in her mind,

Jubilee Pals.

So, when Aunty Pearl, Edna’s daughter, offered to whisk us away to visit the local

sanatorium where her ex, Alec, was being treated for T.B., it sounded like a great offer.

The isolation ward was housed in a long wooden hut, rather like real estate from Stalag

19 and was surrounded by lawns, lawns and more lawns. Having seen Alec, their Dad, the

evening before, and the evening before that, Daisy and Moll offered to show me the grounds.

Edna reluctantly agreed that as she was aged 76, it was best she visited her ex-son-in-law. After

Edna joined Mum and Aunty Pearl in the visitor’s room, Daisy and Moll’s faces brightened.

“Want to see a dead body?” asked Daisy.

“We know where they are kept!” said Moll.

I didn’t. And had I been 12, I would have said so. But I was 13. I needed to preserve my

street cred.

“No, you don’t,” I said. “Who’d show you dead bodies?”

“We found them,” said Moll.

“She means, we found the morgue last night,” said Daisy, cutting off my teenage derision

before my snort had even formed.

“How do you know it’s the morgue!” I said.

“Because there was a sign. It said, ‘Morgue’ ”, said Moll.

That was it. The opportunity to make excuses had scampered away into the dusk like a

hungry rabbit chasing the scent of carrots.

The girls led me to another POW building, which was indeed labelled, ‘Morgue’, stood

back and bid me to look through the keyhole. In the gloom, I thought I made out the shape of a

table, on which lay a body covered by one of those thin waffle blankets the NHS still uses.

Peeping out of the bottom of the inadequate covering, looking directly at me, was a large toe.

“I can see a toe!”

Screaming inwardly, I backed hurriedly away from the door. Having fulfilled the brief, I

prayed they wouldn’t make me look again.

Daisy and Moll shrugged in passive acceptance of my bravery.

I suggested we run back to the visitor’s room in case we got caught. Daisy and Moll, with

their whippet-like pre-pubescent bodies and sleek white trainers, their easy grace and correct

sense of direction, loped elegantly back to the visitors’ room while I clopped along behind in my

chunky platform shoes that were half a size too large.

Alec, looking more unwell than the cadaver, was touched that we girls had come to see

him. We nodded and silently accepted the coins of gratitude he pressed into our hands, before

telling him how lovely the street party had been, and how much we had all missed him.

When we got back to the street, the event had shrunk into a few drunken adults singing

God-Save the Queen. Edna and I exchanged a grateful look. Mum declined the opportunity for

Edna to tell me about the end of rationing and took me home. I went to bed that birthday night

hoping that being 13 would get easier.