These days I'm getting a bit doddery and I often forget things. I wonder if I can tell you what you want ...

I was born on 10 April. I'm 80, you know. My eldest sister was called Setsume, the next was Kiyome, and my young brother was called Masabu. So I was the third girl. There were four of us kids.

My Dad was called Eikichi, but he died when I was 3, so I don't remember much about him. My Mum was called Otsuru, just like the Pilgrim Otsuru in the old story. She was widowed early, with four kids on her hands. It was ten months after my young brother Masabu was born, just about when he was starting to crawl. She was widowed young and brought up four kids, so my Mum had a really hard time of it. She died after the war, when she was 88. Together with her kids, she was a peasant, working 6 taxi [about 11.5 acres] of paddy fields.

We lived in a place called Higashino in Yasufuruichi, and when I came home from school (Higashino Elementary School) I used to help with the farmwork. I'd spread out unhulled rice to dry on as many as fifty or sixty straw mats. In those days, we went back home from school to eat our dinner and, during my dinner break, I'd turn by hand the unhulled rice to air it. Then I'd run back to school. Sometimes before going to school in the morning, I'd put on straw sandals and tread the barley, and then go to school. Together with my Mum, I worked really hard. I grew up really seeing how hard life is for a widowed peasant woman. I think it was thanks to my Mum that even after I was widowed by the atom bomb I could manage the farmwork.

My Mum was never ill once. She lived to be 88. After you've been widowed, you can't afford to be ill or anything like that. Sometimes I think it might be nice to put my feet up, but I've never been ill either. Even when I had my babies, I didn't stay in bed more than a few days.

It was no easy task doing the farmwork without a man about the place. My Mum and us kids held on to the 6 tan [1.5 acres] of paddy fields. We all made our own straw sandals. We made them ourselves at night, and then put them on to go to school. My Mum didn't have a farthing to spare, even to buy us clogs. Ever since I was a kid, things haven't gone smoothly.

Us kids grew up knowing only hard work, then Masabu was killed by the atom bomb, and both my sisters died four or five years ago. Now it's only me who's left. It's ended up that no one on our old farm has got family ties with my Mum and Dad. My Mum and Dad's grave is there, but there doesn't seem much point in going there now.

I got married towards the end of 1919. My husband was called Tsunezō and he was nine years older than me. I think that he might have been getting on for 27. In those days, they didn't put you in the family register until you had a baby, so I don't remember the exact day... People used to say about this place: `Don't send your daughter as a bride to Nukui or Nakachōshi; there's not much to eat there.' What sort of fate brought me here I don't know, but anyway this is where I came to get married. We never saw each other before we got married. It was decided by our parents. I didn't know what sort of man I was marrying.

My husband was a heavy drinker and a very hard man to live with. Even when I was suckling the baby, he would hurry me up and say `Get back to work quickly!' But however much I tried to hurry the baby, babies don't drink that fast. I used to really get in a sweat. My husband used to love drinking with his mates. When they were really drinking, I reckon they would put away 7 or 8 Ad [13 or 14 litres] of saké between them. He was the sort of man, whenever he met someone, he'd bring them home and tell them: `Drink up; eat up!' He went to the local pubs a lot too.

Even when there was nothing in it for him, he still got a kick out of helping people. He was the kind of man who went out of his way to help people, even if they didn't ask him. So when he was killed by the atom bomb, the folks round here said `Your old man was a nice person' and everybody missed him. But inside the house, he was a bit of a tyrant, you know.

It was generally only at New Year and the Bon Festival [in summer] that I got the chance to go back to my Mum's house. My husband never bought me even a single thing. I suppose there wasn't any money to buy things for me because it all went on drink. I shouldn't tell you this, but I lost count of the number of times I ran away back to my Mum's house.

The world's a funny old place and because my husband helped people a lot, after I was widowed, the folks round here helped me a lot. You never know your luck.

I had eight kids. The eldest boy was called Shigeto, and when he was 22 he went off as a soldier. He was killed in the war on 23 August 1943. He was in the Signals Corps. The second boy was Yoshiaki. At the time of the atom bomb he was in the Clothing Depot in Kure. The third boy, Akio, was working in the Mitsubishi Shipyard. The fourth boy, Morito, was in Manchuria with the Manchuria/Mongolia Reclamation Youth Volunteer Corps. He came back in 1947. The fifth boy was called Kazuyuki and he was 3 at the time of the atom bomb. The eldest girl was called Takae and she was in the second year of higher elementary school. When the pupils were mobilised, she was sent to the Clothing Depot in Yoshijima. Chieko, the second girl, was in the fifth year of elementary school; and Toyoko, the third girl, was 6.

I brought up eight kids, so it was nothing but work, work, work. To make ends meet, I didn't buy even a single kimono for myself. With so many kids, I had a really hard time of it. My whole life has been a penance.

I had one child after another, so with the baby strapped on my back, I'd rear any number of silkworms and do all the other jobs. By day, I'd work my heart out in the fields and at night I'd be busy grinding grain. The grinding place was at the entrance to the yard, and I'd light a lamp or a lantern and do the grinding there. You worked it by foot, so it was really hard work.

There weren't any paddy fields here, so we had to eat barley. And we made dumplings out of millet. Nowadays, I often talk about it with Old Mother Takasaki (Haru Takasaki) and we say to each other: `Why was it that in the old days, all we had to eat was barley?' Around here, even the rich folk ate barley.

I used to work most nights. It was the same for every family. I'd do work like spinning hemp to make the thread for tatami matting. And I used to go to Hiroshima to collect nightsoil for fertiliser. I wouldn't get any sleep some nights, going to collect nightsoil. There was never a night that I went to bed without doing some work first. Often I'd only get two or three hours' sleep. So whenever I sat down, sleep would soon catch up with me and I'd start to doze, and then my husband would tell me off.

I'd boil up rice and barley in a huge pot, but even if I left a whole potful, it would soon all be gone. That's what happens when you have so many kids.

Like I said before, I was a good manager; from getting married to being widowed, I didn't buy a single kimono for myself. I made my own working clothes and the kids' things, by cutting up the clothes I brought with me when I got married. I even made mattress covers out of my old clothes. Before I got married, I worked for a while as a spinner in a mill in Higashihara (in Gion), so I brought with me a chest of drawers full of cotton kimonos, and I made do with those.

It was just before the atom bomb that women started to wear monpe trousers. The Women's National Defence Association, or whatever it was called, gave us the order `Wear monpe trousers!' So although I'd never done it before, I cut up a kimono and made some.

Before we had monpe, we just used to tuck up our kimonos when we worked. Underneath, we wore our slips short too. In summer we were really bitten by mosquitoes. I'd burn wood to heat the bath or do other jobs with the baby strapped to my back, and the mosquitoes would be biting the baby's legs. So I used to hitch up my kimono and cover the baby's legs. When I think about it now, it's hard to believe. I shouldn't think that young people these days would put up even for one hour with what we used to do in those days.

I've said it before, but I had so many kids that I had a really hard time of it and life was a penance. My husband was a heavy drinker and he didn't give me any money. He didn't buy anything for me either. All he ever said was: `Get on with your work, get on with your work!' Yet all he ever did was pass the time of day with the neighbours and pop in here and there to drink saké.

Other couples used to work together as man and wife, but our house was different. I wouldn't have minded the work if we had done it together as a couple, but working on my own really got on my nerves. I used to think: `I can't put up with it any more.' It was because I was so fed up that I'd run away to my Mum's house. My husband or the neighbours would come to fetch me, and I'd end up going back. If it were nowadays, it would probably have come to divorce in the end, I suppose. We were an odd couple.

`I must put up with it for the kids' sake', I'd think to myself, and so I'd get on with my work. I worked harder than other people, or you might say I did two people's work. Around here (in Nukui) it was only me who had so many kids and such a hard time of it, so I had to strain every nerve, just like a man might. When I got married, I brought some face-cream with me and I've still got it, you know. I was busy and always working, so I never got round to putting on any cream. I've never once used powder or cream. I've never had the time for such things.

You might not believe it, but people say that if you use a lot of powder when you're young, you'll get wrinkles on your face when you're old. I never used any make-up, so that must be why I don't have any wrinkles, mustn't it? I bet I've got the best complexion out of all the people you've interviewed. Aren't I right? ... The folks round here all say: `You wouldn't think Old Mother Nishimoto was 80; she's got such a good complexion.' Don't you think so too?

On the morning of the 6th (6 August 1945), my husband said: `I don't much feel like going today; I don't want to go.' He felt what was coming, I suppose. It's true; if he hadn't gone, he'd have been saved from the atom bomb ... But since all the other folks round here were going ..

My husband walked away holding the reins of the horse and cart. Four or five neighbours were on the cart, and they were hoping to bring back some wood from the dismantled buildings and share it out between them.

When it happened, I was in the lav. I thought it was just like a flash of lightning; and next there was a noise like an enormous BANG. Inside the house, it went pitch dark. The sliding doors and shoji screens tumbled down and, perhaps because there was nowhere else for the wind to go, that wall over there fell right out. When I looked over towards Hiroshima, a black cloud rose up. I thought to myself that a bomb had fallen. Over towards Mitaki, it had burst into flames. I was thinking that my husband would be helping with the clearing up after the bomb.

About 3 o'clock, the loudspeaker said: `Hiroshima is completely destroyed.' I was surprised because I'd been thinking that my husband was doing things like clearing up after the bomb. Even so, I never thought that he'd be dead, but I couldn't settle, thinking to myself: `I wonder what he's doing?' Even when evening came, my husband didn't come back. I couldn't go to sleep. I heard later that the atom bomb went off during his roll-call on Aioi Bridge (the epicentre of the atomic explosion).

In the middle of the night of the 6th, I heard that the survivors had come back to Yutani (Yutani Heavy Industry Factory in Gion - refuge centre for those injured by the bomb), so straightaway I set off. A big crowd of people were saying: `Give me some water!' `Let me drink some water!' They were all charred and it was horrible to watch.

At the entrance place, Old Man Nomura (Kiyoto Nomura) had a wound on his head and was covered with blisters. When he saw me, he said: `Hasn't my family come ... ?'

‘Well, I didn't see them . . .'

`Oh! Your husband said he was going back. On the way, we got separated. Hasn't he got back yet?'

Old Man Nomura still had his strength. He said: `Your husband won't be among these people.' When I heard that, I quickly turned back home, but my husband hadn't got back. So, thinking that he might have collapsed on the way, immediately I went out again, but the road was dark and I couldn't make out anything. I let Mrs Nomura know and, doing one thing and another, daybreak came. I heard later that Mrs Nomura set off straightaway, but her husband was already dead ...

On the morning of the 7th, I took Akio with me and we set off for Hiroshima to look for my husband. We walked along peering at the dead bodies, covered with blisters, on the roadside and the river bank. We peered into the air-raid shelters too. They were full of dead bodies piled up. They were all charred, you know ...

Because they were all charred, I couldn't tell which was my husband. Then I had an idea. He had a lot of gold teeth, so I thought that if I could find them, I'd know.

After that, I walked on and whenever I came across someone who looked like my husband, I would open the mouth of the charred body and look for gold teeth. I wonder how many dozens, or even hundreds, of dead mouths I opened and looked in. I was desperate, so I didn't even think that it was scary. I just did it, thinking to myself, `Isn't this him?' as I searched for his gold teeth.

For two more days, on the 8th and the 9th of August, I went out looking for him. By the 8th, the dead bodies were already covered in maggots and flies, and the smell was awful. It was a really peculiar smell, you know. There were dead bodies everywhere. I even peered into the mouths of the slimy dead bodies that had been pulled out of the river. So I waled on, peering into mouths, looking for his gold teeth. As time went by, you couldn’t tell whether they were gold teech or maggots. It was terrible . . . For three days we walked all over, looking for him, but in the end my husband wasn't found. I had trouble sleeping because, for a time, whenever I closed my eyes I could still see those poor dead bodies. I'd sometimes think to myself: `Why did so many people come to such a terrible end? They all went off because they were told that it was for the good of the country . . .'

We waited and waited, but my husband didn't come back. The horse never came back either. I couldn't settle down even to my work. I was at a loss what to do and my head was empty. It was as though I'd lost my wits.

About one week later, a fever came on and I had a temperature as high as 40°C [105°F]. If I so much as smoothed down my hair, it dropped out. Akio was the same. Both of us were laid up (with radiation sickness). We boiled up the dokudami herb and drank it as medicine. People said that the hair of the manmankibi plant was good for you, so we boiled that up too and drank it as medicine. But my temperature wouldn't go down, and my hair kept on falling out. It got really thin.

After four or five days, my temperature went down. Still my husband hadn't come back. `If he's dead, somehow we ought to bury him', I thought to myself. I'd got his tobacco pouch and his pipe, so I burnt the tobacco pouch down by the river and collected the ashes. Together with the ashes, we buried his pipe, without burning it, in the grave. I thought to myself `That's his soul', and I pray at his grave even now.

On 12 August, Akio got his call-up papers. He was ordered to enlist in the Second Corps of the Hiroshima Division on the 15th ... Akio had got a high temperature after going out to look for his Dad, and his hair had fallen out, so when his call-up papers came, he was still shaky on his feet.

Early on the morning of the 15th, I packed up some food and set off to Hiroshima with Akio. Dead bodies were still lying around everywhere!

The Second Corps' barracks had been burnt down, and after his business was finished, Akio came out. He said:

`I've just eaten the rice gruel that they gave us in a length of: bamboo. Hiroshima is completely destroyed, so the Second Corps is; going to Yamaguchi. We'll get on the train about mid-day tomorrow."

When I heard this, I went back home. That night, Akio slept rough at Hiroshima Station with the other conscripts.

Early on the morning of the 16th, I packed some food and hurried to Hiroshima Station. Mid-day was drawing close, and it was when Akio was about to get on the express that a voice said: `Discharged from military service'. I felt like I'd been bewitched. The two of us made our way home, walking along under the hot, mid-day sun without saying a word. When I think about it now, it was really odd, I suppose that even after Hiroshima had been completely destroyed[ they were calling up soldiers and the military still wanted to fight on. When I think about it now, it was a completely daft thing to do.

When I became a widow, I was 44. We had about 5 tan [11/a acres]. The children were small, so I worked on my own. In 1947, Morito --my fourth boy - came back from Manchuria. He worked on the farm and that made things a bit easier for me, but still there was so much work to do that at nights I went short of sleep. Even when I was sick, I couldn't afford to stay in bed.

I'd get up at 2 o'clock in the morning, load a couple of tubs on my handcart, and set off to collect nightsoil. The handcart had iron rimmed wheels and the lane was stony, so it was really heavy. 0n the way there, I'd load up vegetables and take them as far a Tokaichi. To get the nightsoil, I had to go as far as places like Ujina and Danbara. If I didn't take them vegetables or something, they wouldn't give me any nightsoil. What I had to take was a little grain or some vegetables. Two or three times, I was caught by the police. Once they even came and searched inside the house. When they sal our tubs and bins, they thumped them. They even went upstairs, and rummaged about in the straw.

I only had a woman's strength, so I could only manage to bring back a couple of tubs. I'd go to collect nightsoil seven or eight times a month, and I'd often get one of the kids to push the cart with m as I pulled. I'd wake up one of the kids who was going to elemental school and say: `I'm sorry. I know you're sleepy, but could you help me push the cart?' Even now, the kids still talk about it. They say: ‘I can still hear Mum’s voice saying, “Could you help push the cart?”’

When the girls got into about the fourth year of elementary school, one after another they did the cooking for me. All my time went on things like going to get nightsoil and working in the fields. Anyway, I was working my heart out just to support the kids.

I used to thin the nightsoil with water. If you don't use nightsoil, the crops don't grow. I had to hand over all my painfully grown crops to the government. The kids got only half a cup of rice each as their ration. It wasn't enough for growing children. I used to feed them by spinning out their rice with sweet potatoes and mouli... Anyway, somehow I managed to feed them. As long as you feed them, they grow. Because we were farming, there was food to eat and I could bring them up somehow. If we hadn't been farming, I reckon we would have ended up killing ourselves.

We were short of firewood too. I used to go to Nukui Hill (a wood owned in common by the village) to gather two loads of firewood in the morning and two loads in the afternoon. I used to go to gather up the fallen pine needles too. We got a ration of firewood, but it wasn't much. We couldn't afford to buy any, so it was work, work all the time. What with all this, I wore myself out. I've got aches in my hips and shoulders and bones. Now I'm just a bundle of aches.

School books, too, weren't free like they are now. I let my three daughters go to high school. If I didn't let them go to high school, I thought they wouldn't be able to make a good marriage. They all made the effort to work their way through school and did very well.

On 6 August, I always go to pray at the Seigan Temple and at the monument to the Volunteer Corps (in the Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima). They often say to me, `Since we've come this far, let's go to the cinema or the shops', but I've never gone even once. If I'd spent money on myself, I couldn't have managed to get my daughters married. If I hadn't saved every penny, I couldn't have afforded to get them married. When my daughters got married, I let them take everything they needed - even tea for the pot. Even these days, there aren't many parents who do that much. I did everything for them.

I say to my children: `Don't come running to your Mum. You've got to grin and bear it, and stand on your own two feet.' And I say to them: `For the sake of your kids, get on well together as man and wife, and live long lives.' It's no fun being a widow.

Youngsters today seem to think that if war broke out, it would be exciting. There's nothing exciting about it. It's just stupid. Youngsters forget that war means dying. They don't know how cruel war is. Youngsters walk along the embankment at the back of our house, singing war songs. They don't know what war means. They didn't live through the hard times of the war, so it seems to them that war is exciting and something flashy. I tell my children and grandchildren just what it was like during the war. War muse happen again.

These days, ships are coming with nuclear weapons on board, and they're building warships. If they keep on building up the Self Defence Forces, there's bound to be another war. When armaments keep on piling up year by year, it must come to a full-scale war in the end. If another war comes, Japan will be completely destroyed. There mustn't be another war.

Morning and evening, I chant a sutra. Thanks to the spirits of the dead, we are living on. You need more than your own strength to keep on living. In our house, people go off to work early in morning, so my daughter-in-law boils up the rice in the evening. That's why we offer hot rice to the spirits of the dead in the evening. We freshened up the household altar to the Buddha. We thought the dead would be pleased.

Even when you're getting on in years, it doesn't do just to take it easy. I read the newspaper with a magnifying glass. I keep on w my brains. I talk to the youngsters about the things I read irn newspaper.

Today the others are boxing up cucumbers. My job is the weeding. During the day, there's no one about the house. Everybody's at work, growing the crops. If you're going to telephone, better make it of an evening. Then I'll be in ...

Kanda, Mikio (Ed.). Widows of Hiroshima: The Life Stories of Nineteen Peasant Wives. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1989; pp. 1-10.