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Every evening my father arrived home from work, and every so often he would empty his pockets of fawn ninepenny exchange bus tickets. At that age you would think I wouldn't have an accurate idea of time, yet, one evening, I suddenly asked if I could go and meet him at the bus stop. Perhaps, my mother unthinkingly made some worried comment, or a programme came on the radio. She was always certain that this wasn't so. Near the bottom of the hill, I found him standing against the wall with the foot from his artificial leg in his hand. I ran back home to fetch Mum. We took a pair of crutches and the pram. She helped him to take the leg off and limp home, while I pushed the pram as well as I could, with the leg in it.

Articulating artificial legs, like his, were fairly rare and, during the war, virtually unobtainable. So, the following day, I went with him to Horton's garage on the outskirts of the village where, in the workshop, the car mechanic, scratched his head and worked out what he was going to do about it. The extension into which the ankle pin fitted was aluminium, which was then virtually unweldable. He must have been able to do something, for the leg served my father until the National Deposit Friendly Society bought him a new one.

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