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In 1939 I was 7, my dad was a Salvation Army officer and he worked in the men’s social work department. My dad managed a hostel for homeless men in Marylebone. It was an old meeting hall and a floor had been added for all the beds 360, in total. The cellar below was a huge dining room. We lived in a flat at one end of the building and my father had his office at the other end. When my father finished working he used to walk through the hostel to get home. On one occasion a very drunk man punched my father and gave him a black eye. He went to throw a second punch but this time my father ducked and the man lost his balance and fell through a plyboard partition. The man was stuck and unable to free himself from the jagged plyboard. My father called the police to come and take him away.
During the war I had a little dog called Gipsy who I loved to take walking in Hyde park where I collected shrapnel. I remember there was an anti-craft gun there at the time. On one occasion I lost Gipsy’s lead an I needed to walk up Edgeware Road. I went to the barrage balloon site and asked them if I could have a piece of rope. They gave me an enormous thick piece of rope, which looked very odd tied round such a tiny dog.

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