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I have been told that I was Christened during an air raid but my earliest memory is when I was 2. I was staying with my grandmother and having an egg for my breakfast when my mother called me to say goodbye to my father, I didn't see him again until I was 6.

We lived in Westcliff and I can remember my mother carrying me in an eiderdown and taking me to a neighbour's air raid shelter. I always took with me a teddy bear and a photo of my father.

Whilst my father was away in India he sent me letters and dot to dot puzzles and drawings. He also made me two books, the first one was lost in a fire so I never received it but the second one I still have.

When I started school my mother had a photograph taken of me and sent it to my father. My father had a leather satchel made in India and had it sent to me. Sometimes my Mum took me to the cinema, my mother always talked to me about my father.

One night in 1946 I was woken up and there was this man looking at me and I knew instantly it was my father.

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