When I was a very small boy, there were three young women friends of similar age, greatly influenced by the events of the 1930s, and sharing, I think, a sympathy for socialist causes, all teachers. I knew them as Auntie Nan, Auntie Pat, and Auntie Dora, though they were not related to us or to each other. It was especially Auntie Dora, my godmother, who gave a lot of help to my mother during the difficult times of the second world war, during much of which my father could not be at home. This is not to say that he was in the least negligent. On the contrary, using his expert knowledge, he reinforced a room of our house with substantial timber, so that we could all go in there in case of an air-raid warning (those frequent menacing sirens—click for sound and video: use your browser’s back-button to return here). This would be likely to give us some protection in the event of a bomb dropping nearby.
