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My childhood was spent in the small market town of Hitchin. One abiding memory from the latter days of the war is of a day when the news was passed around that the greengrocer had some cucumbers coming.

Mr Gordon Day’s shop was in the Churchyard. I remember a queue forming. It stretched back through the garden of rest to St Mary’s Square — several hundred yards. As far as I know everyone got their cucumber. They were a shilling each.

I remember very clearly how orderly and patient the queue was. And I often think what a wonderful wartime spirit of neighbourliness there was when the news was spread around. I think many people would be tempted to keep such an opportunity to themselves these days.

Just opposite St Mary’s Square, on the corner of Queen Street and Hollow Lane, there was an open space in those wartime days. It’s where the telephone exchange stands today. For VE Day we boys made a big bonfire, with a ‘den’ inside.

I think too what freedom we had in those days. Boys could build a bonfire in the town! What an outcry there would be today from mums and dads and teachers and the police and everyone worrying about ‘health and safety’. But we were very responsible with it. We knew the bounds of what we could do, and what we couldn’t.

In fact it was some grown-ups, soldiers, who didn’t. They set the bonfire alight one night before we were ready to celebrate. They were ordered to rebuild it for us.

Entered by the British Schools Museum, Hitchin on behalf of Mr Dennis Croxton

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