‘But will the children be safe here?’ Sunday fretted, thinking of her own two adorable grandchildren. At two, they were mischievous, and running all over the place and sometimes she felt that she needed eyes in the back of her head. But even so she doted on them and was terrified what might happen to them. Thomas had now gone from being the smallest of the two to being the tallest, although Daisy was still the chatterbox and by the far the most bossy. Truthfully, she would have liked to take some evacuees herself, but the lodge was already overcrowded. ‘We’re only a stone’s throw from Coventry and the car factories there are bound to be a target if they start bombing,’ she pointed out.

John shook his head and spread his hands helplessly. ‘I should think it would still be safer here than staying in one of the major cities.’

She nodded numbly as a horrible sense of foreboding swept through her.

Within days recruitment centres appeared in all the towns and cities across the country and young men were called up to join the forces.

‘They were queuing up outside the recruitment office in Nuneaton,’ John told Sunday sorrowfully one afternoon before admitting, ‘I’m terrified that Giles will be called up at any moment. I find myself lying awake every night worrying about it.’

She could understand his fears. She could still remember how terrified she had been when Tom and Ben went away to fight in the first war, but as she pointed out, ‘I imagine he’ll want to feel he’s contributing in some way, though. But what will happen to the horses when he goes? I’m not sure George could manage everything in the stables on his own.’ Unfortunately, young Billy, the groom John had first employed when he arrived at Treetops, had left soon after his arrival to return to his family so the onus of looking after the animals had fallen solely to George and Giles again.

‘If it’s anything like the last time the army will take the horses,’ John said glumly. ‘They’ll just leave the very young and the very old probably. They’ll probably take the gates and any metal they can get their hands on as well for making tanks and ammunition but we’re just going to have to make the best of it.’

Dread ran through her veins like iced water as she again thought back to the last war. Their sons and daughters would not remember it, but she did, as if it was only yesterday. She could remember being in the town one day and watching the young men queuing to go to the front, she had known many of them and was painfully aware that the majority had never come home and now their bodies lay buried in foreign countries far away. Would it be the same this time? All they could do was wait and see.