It was an experience every new mother should have. She taught us by example to enjoy our babies. Wonderful meals were brought to us wherever we happened to be. There were no clocks. She started with some but when they were stolen she didn’t replace them as she wanted us to respond to the needs of our babies, not a clock. If they cried Dr Sutherland would drift past saying, “I should feed her if I were you. I expect she’s hungry” ....but “Babies are tough but perhaps you shouldn’t lay her down lengthways on the bed. If she should happen to roll off and if in a later life she should turn out a bit odd you would think it was your fault.” She believed very strongly that “A happy mother makes a happy baby.” Whenever the sun shone she would send some of us out with a picnic – a very large, hot casserole well lagged in blankets and settled in a pushchair while we carried our babies. “Feed them under a hedge,” she advised.

When Gale was three weeks old I was sent with another mother whose little boy was exactly the same age by bus all the way to Winchester to have their photographs taken. Inspired by her we walked a couple of miles pushing a bottomless pram to support the carrycots to a garage where we could leave it and catch a bus. Photographs duly taken we marched into Winchester Cathedral and demanded to be taken somewhere to feed our babies. Politely they showed us into the Bishop’s Chapel where we satisfied the children in comfort and changed them on the Bishop’s blotting paper.

Peter got a day’s leave and came to visit. When he had to leave Dr Sutherland advised “Go part of the way with him on the train. Go as far as Reading” – so Gale had her first train ride and I took her to show her off to my grandmother – my father’s mother.

That night, tired out, I slept through everything but Dr Sutherland lay outside my bedroom door. When Gale woke and cried she crept in to fetch, fed her and soothed her back to sleep, to make quite sure I didn’t lose confidence in her adage that life needn’t stop because one had a child.

Peter was relocated in Taunton for more rehabilitation and arranged for us to lodge with a delightful elderly couple. The wife taught me a great deal. “When we were first married,” she said, “I had ten shillings a week housekeeping money each week. I managed on nine shillings – an enamel bowl here, a pot there. We furnished our house on that shilling.”

After some weeks of peace Peter was well enough to rejoin the War Office, so we went back to the bombs.