大象传媒

I can remember rationing time. I used to go into the butcher's with my mother and she got rather embarrassed because I always liked going round the back of the butcher's counter and looking up inside the animal carcass, and I'd say, "Yes, he has got kidneys, Mummy!" in front of the whole shop. You see, kidneys weren't rationed. So it was always a bonus if you could see them, as when you asked, "Have you any kidneys?" he didn't always answer "Yes". But if you'd seen them, what could he say?

At the end of the war my father was demobbed and I can remember spending hours crayoning and cutting out "Welcome home, Daddy" in paper letters, and we strung them all up acrosss the sitting-room. I had a younger brother but he was too young to help, so I did it myself and I remember I got great blisters on my fingers from all the cutting-out. I can remember doing it as if it was yesterday. My father came home and I think he'd got flu or something because he said, "Oh, yes, very nice" and went to bed! Terrible! It was winter then and very cold. During the war we had been in Wales, Aberystwyth and round there, but we had gone home to Worthing by then.

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