In July 1944 the Powers That Be decided on a third evacuation from London. We travelled by coach to Corton on the Norfolk coast, taking Gale’s pram and basic necessities. The party consisted of about 250 boys and girls of eleven to eighteen, mostly from Stratford Grammar School but a few from a neighbouring school in Plaistow, my father the headmaster, the caretaker, Peter, Gale and myself, and six assorted mums who were to cook.

We landed up in an ex-holiday camp in the woods on top of a cliff. The beach below was mined, and there were no fences or walls. The army had occupied the place until about a month before and it was a shambles. Half the huts’ doors were hanging off. The drains were blocked. The workhouse and laundry were so overgrown we didn’t find them for two days. Everywhere was filthy and thickly strewn with live ammunition.

And, because it was the start of the summer holidays none of the staff had come!

There were two large halls on the site, one for recreation and the other a dining room with kitchen attached with gigantic cooking stoves, long tables and tip-up wooden chairs. The authorities had provided basic food, mainly dried egg, spam, potatoes and cabbage. Gale was a very fast crawler and when I put her down for a minute on the hall floor she was immediately unrecognisably filthy. Luckily I had made her several dungarees out of unrationed check dusters.

Gale was never one to sit still. She would set out, very fast, for the crates of third-of-a-pint bottles of milk and poke her little fingers in all the tops if I didn’t get there quickly enough.

The Old Man got hold of some tools and set about mending the huts with a team of helpers – gathering up the live ammunition as he went.

The caretaker recruited a gang of ne’er-do-wells who enjoyed going down the drains, and managed to clear them.

Peter got on the phone which was working thank goodness, and rang up the nearest army base. This couldn’t have been more helpful and sent over immediately two members of the Catering Corps to teach our mums how to cook in bulk on the gigantic stoves. They also warned us to watch out for our girls as there was a camp for delinquent young soldiers a mile down the road. For the next two days Peter spent most of his time on the phone. As our outside contact man he had to get the hot water system working again, order food and supplies of cleaning materials and necessary equipment, argue with the authorities. For a non-organisational man he did very well. I spent most of my time settling Gale’s needs.