That September Gale had a new fairy cycle, quite a big one, for her birthday, and started school at Blackheath High School. The little ones now inhabited a house at the end of The Paragon, facing the Heath, a much longer walk. There was a back way, even longer but quiet and very suitable for a bike. By the first day of term she had learnt to ride, but not yet to mount and dismount. I had to put her on, give her a push, jump on to my own bike, and ride beside her with my hand on her shoulder, past an actual farm; yes, a farm in London eight miles from London Bridge. The first day of school came and, dressed in her new uniform, we set off. All went well. We managed to cross the fairly main Lee Road safely. When we arrived I very quickly rested my bike against the fence and turned to catch her before she fell off.

As an infant she had morning school only, so I met her outside school at 12.30 and we repeated the process. After three days I rode up Lee Park in good time to fetch her when I was amazed to see my daughter cycling safely and independently down the hill toward me. She had been let out a little early, decided she could get on by herself; had ridden home carefully looking both ways at the main road. After that she insisted on getting on and off the bike herself, but I still escorted her each way making quite sure I got there early to meet her before she set off home.

Cedric Dover insisted that The Rule of Three, now complete with chapter headings, be professionally typed and soft-bound to send to an American agent in zero time, so against our better judgement we paid £30 to have it done – not as well as I could have done it! And off it went.

Peter had done his part; now I must do mine. But before we started on our project to live in the country he decided to apply for a job at Goldsmith College, just a twenty minute tram ride away at New Cross. Here is a story he wrote about that adventure.

I realise now that I was even less well organised in those days; the story of my solitary attempt to get a job in training college depended on this personality quirk. That summer I felt that I ought to be applying for suitable posts – almost so that I could say that I had tried. There were practical considerations too, including considerably more money; Bill Spikes had said that I shouldn’t be too long in my first job and took the view that, including war service, I’d been nearly ten years at Stratford; and a training college, rather distinguished, advertised for a lecturer in Speech and Drama and was only a sixpenny journey by tram from the end of Lee Park. The last thing I knew about in any professional way was Speech, but on the other hand I was quite a dab at drama. Anyway, it was worth trying.