At school all those miles away they had heard the bomb and I knew they would be worrying. We always did. If there is a moral to our bomb story it is that one should never leave one’s child alone in a pram outside a shop.

Soon after that came VE Day. There were street parties in some of the working-class streets off Blackheath but no signs of rejoicing in the “posh” streets of large houses like ours. My sister-in-law babysat for us so Peter and I wandered out to join the celebrations if we could find them after Gale was in bed. When we did come across one we realised that we were strangers so felt too shy to join in and went home. It was an anti-climax really. But as far as we were concerned, the war was over.