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We lived only twelve miles from Central London, so at the beginning of the war, safety against attack from the air was very important. Flying glass was of course one of the biggest of perceived dangers. Sticky paper to stick on the windows was a best seller. The rich could afford to buy paper with fancy patterns but our windows were criss-crossed with long strips of brown sticky tape, especially the French Windows in the ‘back room’ which was turned into a sort of shelter in case bombs fell. Here, between the back wall and the piano, put there to catch any flying glass, my brother and I slept under a large single bed, my mother beside us and my father on top. The bed inexplicably had been taken off its legs and balanced on four very fragile bent-wood kitchen chairs, one at each corner. I still dread to think of the consequences had there been even the slightest shake, however nothing happened and we soon returned to our comfortable beds upstairs. .

A few months later an Anderson shelter, named after the government minister who invented it, was erected at the bottom of the garden. Made of corrugated iron and covered with earth to catch the blast, there were no windows and at first no door either. In the spirit of make do and mend, my parents procured an old metal sheet and propped it up outside to catch the flying debris? A good move as it happened, as a very small bomb did land next door but one. I can still hear the stones frantically pummelling the barricade. To enter one stepped inside this dark hole on to an upturned box. Later the council’s estimate of the size of shelter required for four people proved very inadequate. They hadn’t realised that we would be sleeping down the garden for months at a time, and we were issued with a larger model. The lower walls below the corrugated iron were of bare earth, or rather in that part of Surrey, thick clay. My mother dug a ‘sump’, a hole to drain off the water which naturally collected, especially when it rained. She emptied this with a bucket every day for several years until the council, realising the plight of thousands of householders, came round and concreted it for us. On several occasions we were forced to retreat to the cupboard under the stairs. The added risk of a bomb was amply counteracted by the certainty of falling sick with pneumonia in the arctic winter conditions.

Our fourth attempt to find an adequate refuge, and one which my parents thought would not result in severe ill-health, came in the form of a Morrison shelter. This large, ungainly metal table-cum-cage was erected in my grandmother’s living room right in front of the fireplace. We were living with her at the time and each night we were tucked up underneath, the light partia11y shut out by a thick red velvet tablecloth. I remember wondering vividly, as I stared at the fire through the wide mesh bars, what would happen if the house were to become the victim of any sort of damage. Logic told me that the hot flying coals wouldn’t do us a lot of good but who was I to query the wisdom and experience of my elders and betters? I held my peace and luckily the house, which had some near misses, was never actually bombed.

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