Peter’s father, Arthur Hewett was the youngest of a very large family and the only one of them to go on to any kind of education after the age of fourteen when he started at the Camberwell School of Art. He was very proud of being related to Charles Dickens, who was his great uncle. His father had been encouraged by relatives at the age of nine to write to his famous uncle, who wrote back to say it was a pity that at his age he had not learned to spell. Arthur married above himself. Florence’s father Mr Jennings was editor of The Builder and Decorator, lived with his American wife Jenny and daughter Florence in an expensive house in Dulwich and kept a cook and housemaid. Arthur decided never to paint another picture but to make a fortune for his bride. Having been the runt of his own family physically, and beneath his wife socially, he was determined that his children should have a good education come what may, although being a totally incompetent businessman he was never able to provide his family with enough money.

After his demobilisation before the end of the Great War with suspected TB, Arthur got a job in London designing show cards, joining his family only at weekends. But by autumn 1922 they owed so much money that they had to flit – hence the move to London, leaving behind everything they could not carry.

When the eight-and-a-half-year-old Peter found that his father had lied to him; that he was not on an unexpected holiday to London, but was there permanently, he was heartbroken. He had left behind everything he cared for – the Hampshire countryside where he had been free to roam – the butterflies, birds, flowers – his museum, his books, his dog. Peter didn’t really forgive his father until he wrote Owslebury Bottom after retiring from teaching in 1974. Then, as he wrote, he began to understand why it had all happened.

At eight, though, he thought nothing could get worse. He was wrong. The family moved to a basement flat in the Hammersmith slums. At night there were screams and thuds as the man upstairs beat up his wife. Joan, Peter and Bill, the three children, were sent to Brackenbury Road Elementary School, where some of the big boys carried knives. Everything was dirty, rough and horrible. Peter was terrified.

In the dusty yard which was called a garden was a shed belonging to one of the upstairs tenants. Under it lived a feral cat whose front paw was permanently caught in its collar. It, too, was savage and no-one could approach it to release it from its torment.

Florence did what she could, but with hardly any money, and none of the fresh vegetables, eggs and fruit from Owslebury, she had nothing to cook, and they lived on faggots and chips from a shop down the road.