In the end we were told that there was nothing basically wrong with either of us – to look after our general health and diet and to keep trying.

Peggy was very, very sympathetic. Children were of supreme importance to her. She quite seriously suggested that her husband, Arthur, would make an ideal father for our child.

“He’s so brilliant,” she explained, “that he ought to father a lot of children. He wouldn’t interfere.” They both considered I was an ideal mother. Neither Geraldine or Peggy understood that what I wanted was another of Peter’s children, not just any child.

By now it was summer 1948. Gale was nearing her fifth birthday and would be starting at Blackheath High School in the autumn. Peter’s book was finished, all but the title and chapter headings. We decided to camp with Arthur and Peggy and their two boys plus Paddy and Mary Fisher. Mary, also a pianist, was Geraldine’s twin sister. After much discussion we chose the Gower Peninsula in Wales and found a rather boggy field on top of a cliff (again) on a farm. It made a great difference that Arthur and Paddy both brought their cars.

To get to our ideal beach, sand, caves, rock pools and all, we had to climb down the cliff.
Peggy took charge, of course. We were all to eat proper porridge for breakfast, and, before breakfast, to prevent any couples nagging one another, we were to swap husbands. Someone else’s husband would be much less likely to snap about the long treck for water and milk and the crises that always arose when people were hungry. After breakfast we were allowed to change back.

All three men decided to grow beards – and none of the women could bear the look of other people’s husbands but didn’t mind our own, which was fortunate. As far as I was concerned, Peter looked like a version of Jesus Christ – Arthur a grizzled bear and Paddy like a large pink pig.

We went for long, long walks with the children as Peggy believed in tiring children out every day. Four-year-old Henry was unable to tell what was wrong if he felt uncomfortable. Was he tired? or hungry, cold, or too hot? He didn’t know, so Peggy had to guess. Stolidly he marched on, uncomplaining. Not so Stephen! He was still not talking intelligibly, indeed he started school that year unable to make himself understood so said not a word for the whole term. But if he wasn’t understood he would throw a tantrum.

On one of our walks we had at least ten minutes of a screaming, kicking Stephen lying on his back on the path before a very patient Arthur discovered he wanted to know why the waves came in curved and not straight.