lorry drivers’ pull-up, to see if any of the drivers would give us a lift. It wasn’t far and the place was full – but sadly they told us that there was a police trap just a few miles away on the London Road and it was more than their jobs were worth to take us. Then a little man drinking tea in the corner piped up. “If you are stuck for a bed, come with me,” he said, “I’ll ask my wife.” He led us back into town and round several streets of council houses, and stopped outside one which was particularly clean, painted and polished. He left us outside while he consulted. He had been told we had no money. Out he came to fetch us, and we were made welcome. After a late tea we were shown to a highly polished double room. The wife was obviously embarrassed and I wondered if she were going to ask me if we were married – but it was not that. She hated having to say that there was only a metal pot under the bed. Her husband wouldn’t have a china one – not since their daughter had broken hers when she sat on it and got a nasty cut.

Once we had got over that difficulty we became very confidential and I was treated to sight of framed photographs of all her nearest and dearest. Finally, after large mugs of milky cocoa to help us sleep, we were escorted up to bed – a high double one into which one sank as if into a cloud.

After breakfast next morning Peter went into town to find a branch of Westminster Bank. His account, such as it was, was in Oxford. Years and years before the days of cheque cards, life could be very difficult. He had a great deal of trouble in persuading the cashier to phone Oxford to allow them to speak to Peter and cross-question him to make sure he was himself, before he was allowed to cash a cheque for £5. We were able to pay our kind hosts and get a lift back to London, the police trap having been cleared.

Most of the rest of that vacation we spent with our families. Students did in those days, unless they were rich. It was a time of very high unemployment and very low unemployment pay – Dole! Most students then came from well-off families and there were no opportunities anyway for them to earn.

Arthur and Florence, Joan and Bill had now moved to Bexley. Arthur was very firm. He didn’t mind what his sons got up to as long as they didn’t do it UNDER HIS ROOF. So we lived a very open air life, especially after dark. As we wandered from chuchyard to allotment, from allotment to the heath, Peter would tell me ghost stories, a practice in his family who liked to scare one another. This had absolutely no effect until he began to frighten himself in the