He only played for money and he always won. Every now and again, as we went up to bed at about ten o’clock he would come back from the pub with three local men and they would settle down for a whole night’s Bridge. As we came down to our breakfasts we would see them leaving, sadder but I am afraid not much wiser. He had only recently taught himself Russian by haunting the docks in London to meet Russian seamen, and offered to teach us, but I only learnt a word or two.

Peter’s leg was still bothering him quite a bit. Eventually he graduated form crutches to a stick – cobbled streets on a steep slope were not 100% suitable for crutches. When his call-up papers arrived he went for an interview but was deferred. The summer weather was glorious that year – we had a white camelia and a medlar tree in the garden.

When autumn came, and then winter, the weather was still warm but misty. We woke up each morning to find our hair wringing wet on our pillows and shoes left in a cupboard for as much as a week grew grey mould. At the beginning of December I developed a bad tooth-ache and the dentist diagnosed an impacted wisdom tooth, decided I needed gas for the extraction but had no way of calling in a doctor to administer it that day. I was to come back next morning. During the night my face swelled up like a balloon and I couldn’t open my mouth. For days I went each morning for infra-red treatment to bring down the swelling but it had no effect. All over Christmas, for which I cooked a delicious chicken, I was unable to eat anything larger than a grain of rice. Eventually the dentist decided that he must somehow force my mouth open or I would have to go into hospital to have the tooth out through my cheek. As I breathed in the gas I felt him kneel on my lap to get a purchase, and when I came to I had chipped front teeth and a very sore face, but the wisdom tooth had gone.

Peter’s arthritis was improving so they called him up again, but the muscles in his leg had wasted so he needed physiotherapy. Eventually in late February 1941 he joined the Royal Ordnance Corps as a private and was posted to Earl Shilton in Leicestershire. Solemnly he handed me his stick as he boarded the train.

I followed him a fortnight later, as soon as I had sorted out our affairs in Cornwall.