I was only eight years old when the Second World War ended, but I can still remember something about the victory celebrations in the small town where I lived.(76) We had not suffered much from the war there, though like most children of my age, I was used to see-ing bombed houses in the streets and the enormous army lorries passing through. But both at home and at school I had become accustomed to the phrases "before the war" and "when the war’s over." "Before the war," apparently, things had been better, though I was too young to understand why, except there had been no bombs then, and people had eaten things like ice cream and bananas, which I had only heard of. When the war was over, we would go back to London, but this meant very little to me. I did not remember what Lon-don was like.
What I remember now about VE Day was the afternoon and the evening. It was a fine May day. I remember coming home at about five o’clock. My father and mother came in about an hour later. After dinner I said I wanted to see the bonfire (篝火), so when it got dark my father took me to the end of the street. The bonfire was very high, and some peo-ple had collected some old clothes to dress the utakable figure with the moustache (子) they had put on top of it. Just as we arrived, they set light to it. The flames rose and soon covered the "guy." Everyone was cheering and shouting, and an old woman came out of her house with two chairs and threw them on the fire to keep the fire going.
I stood beside my father until the fire started to go down, not knowing what to say. He said nothing either. He had fought in the First World War and may have been remem-bering the end of that. At last he said, "Well, that’s it, son. Let’s hope that this time it really will be the last one. \
The utakable figure with the moustache most probably represents ______.