The month before the army had come to take all the horses apart from the elderly ones and Kathy and George had watched them go with tears in their eyes. Even before the horses had been taken, the beautiful gates that led into the drive of Treetops had been removed to be melted down and made into ammunition. Worse still, only months before, Nuneaton had been bombed by the Luftwaffe who had mistaken the town for Birmingham causing chaos and bringing home to them all the fact that they were now as vulnerable as the rest of the country. All along the coast barbed wire had been strung along the beaches like lethal sparkling necklaces to try to prevent attacks from the sea and now everyone was fearful.

‘It makes yer wonder where it’s all goin’ to end,’ Cissie said fretfully and Sunday could only nod in agreement. She was now nearly seventy-one years old and sometimes recently she felt so tired that she wished she could just close her eyes and join her beloved Tom, but she knew that she wouldn’t. Not until the war was over and Livvy was home safely. Only weeks before her daughter had managed to get a forty-eight-hour pass and had made a fleeting visit, much to her mother’s delight.

Sunday had been shocked when she first saw her, for in the time Livvy had been away she seemed to have grown from a girl into a level-headed young woman. She held a very responsible job, and although Livvy enjoyed the challenge, Sunday knew it could be very hard sometimes. She’d told Sunday about a time when she suddenly lost contact with a pilot who was out on a mission only to learn hours later that he hadn’t made it home. Even so, Livvy tried to concentrate on the ones who did make it safely back and made sure that despite a number of flirtations she never got serious with any of the young pilots. It would have been just too heartbreaking to become attached to one who might be shot down.

Kathy came into the kitchen then, to find her mother and Cissie hanging over the wireless, and sighed. She was struggling with frustration. Daisy and Thomas were a mischievous pair who kept her on her toes every minute of the day. She was looking forward to them starting school the following year when she would be able to return to part-time nursing. Admittedly both her mother and Cissie had offered to watch them for her if she wished to go back sooner but Kathy didn’t feel right about placing such a responsibility on their shoulders, particularly as they were both in their seventies now.