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In the war, everything you bought was rationed. We had coupons to buy butter, tinned bacon and powdered eggs as well as other things like clothes. We would go to our local shop on Latimer Road in North Kensington with our coupons. Even sweets and chocolates were rationed.

But our Dad was shrewd. He got things on the black market. We don’t know how — we never asked questions. But it meant we never went short. He even managed to get big bars of Cadburys chocolate for us sometimes.

In the park next to Wormwood scrubs, we would go to plant and dig up vegetables. We used to go there to play football before the war but we couldn’t do that any more because it was all being dug for the war effort. We called it digging for victory. All the kids used to help with this. We would spend the morning in school and then our whole class would go to the park in the afternoon to dig up carrots, cabbages and potatoes. We weren’t allowed to take any of the food home with us but I often used to eat a sneaky carrot when no-one was looking. I never got caught, I was too quick.

For Sunday lunch, my two brothers and I would take it in turns to go and get a cooked lunch from the food kitchen which was in the school by Wormwood scrubs. They’d put a Sunday lunch on our plate and a cover over the top. It would take about 5 minutes to walk home with the plates, by which time the food wasn’t always that hot. But it was always good — sometimes we’d even get a roast.

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