As summer 1939 arrived we realised that war was inevitable. We had planned to wait one more year before we got married to allow Peter time to pay off some of his debts, but now this seemed a bad idea. If we were not married they would separate us. So I gave in my notice at Denes and we booked a Registry Office wedding, for August 5th. As we gave people very little notice and invited no guests we had few wedding presents and wore ordinary clothes. It was raining. My brother Roger and Peter’s brother Bill came as witnesses, and we were shown into a long, narrow room. The roof leaked. We all lit up cigarettes.

“Please come with us,” an official said – so we stubbed out our fags and were led to another long narrow room, also with a leaking roof. Finally, we got to a little square room and settled down in four chairs, two behind two, facing the Registrars’ desk.

The ceremony was soon over. All through, Bill, who sat behind me, was whispering in my ear “Taxi’s ticking up, taxi’s ticking up!” We signed things and emerged into the rain and our waiting taxi. After a tea with a home-made sponge cake made by my mother we took a bus over to Bexley – determined to embarrass Arthur by “doing it under his roof!” and sat up until he was forced to suggest that we went to bed – together.

The next day we went to Cornwall for our honeymoon, catching the same train and bus as we had the year before, having sent off the camping things in advance, for our honeymoon.

We had already made friends with Trip, Mr Tripconey, an ex-fisherman and member of the lifeboat crew who lived in Cadgwith and earned his living as a “Sunday painter”, selling views of the harbour and the village to tourists. Times were very hard. The whole village went on the dole all the winter. Now we got to know some of the other visitors.

Before the war there was a mildly pornographic magazine called Razzle. We now met its originator who called himself Lord Razzle. He had bought up a failing magazine aimed at men, and gradually made it more and more mildly pornographic – nothing to what is published legally nowadays – and it became more popular and sold more copies the ruder he allowed it to be. With very good judgment he sold it to another publisher for a very high price just before the police pounced and banned it unless it was cleaned up. When this was done the sales began to drop off – and when they had fallen enough to make it totally unprofitable he bought it back – very cheaply – and began to edge it up again by nudes and suggestive articles bit by bit – increasing the circulation again. Again he sold it very profitably before the police clamped down. This process he repeated several times and became very rich.

His wife, Maisie Gregg, was pregnant with her first child at the age of 45 that summer – unheard of then. She was a writer of Mills and Boon-type novels which were stocked in