Other boys at school and university talked openly about their experiences with girls and although he knew that much of their talk was wishful thinking he understood, too, that he was unlikely ever to reach what they called ‘first base’, let alone ‘go the whole way’, at least until he found someone stupid enough to marry him. What would any girl see in him: his thin and weedy frame, his brown skin and thick glasses? No, it was far better to push any thoughts of such encounters to the back of his mind. In bed at night, he found that trying to solve theorems or other mathematical puzzles could be a great distraction.

At last the pilot and his companion descended the steps and disappeared through the crowd.

‘Lucky bastard,’ someone muttered.

‘You wish, you randy old devil.’ Everyone laughed.

Vic didn’t envy the pilot. On his tenth birthday, his father had taken him up in a glider. He could still remember the terror of the take-off as they bounced along the airstrip, towed behind another plane like a flimsy toy, and the way his stomach churned as they lifted into the air. He’d found himself praying that he wouldn’t embarrass himself. Then the tow rope disappeared and as the other plane peeled away everything went quiet, save the whistling of the wind. It was only then Vic realised that the glider had no engine.

‘Terrific, isn’t it?’ his father had shouted, apparently unaware that at any minute they could plummet like a stone to the ground. But through some inexplicable piece of magic the plane stayed up, and they even landed safely, if a bit bumpily. Vic managed to climb out and dash to the side of the field before being violently sick.

He had decided there and then that flying was far too dangerous, and he wasn’t going anywhere near an aeroplane ever again. Yet here he was, twelve years later, queuing to sit inside the cockpit of a Fairey Swordfish, because Robert Watson-Watt had given him the enormous honour – that’s how Vic saw it, at least – of asking him to join a team working on an extra-secret and vitally important mission, that required familiarising himself with the construction, mechanics and electrics of as many types of aircraft as possible.

At the Manor, developments had moved faster than Vic could have anticipated. Just after Christmas Watson-Watt had announced that the RAF would be using it as the base for the first ever training school for radio direction finding, meaning that the systems they had been working on would be integrated into mainstream government planning for the defence of Britain in case of war. Within a few days new accommodation buildings were being constructed, and before very long the first intake of recruits arrived.

Teams of workers braved all weathers to erect three more masts and below them tons of concrete were mixed and poured, constructing heavily fortified bunkers into which the transmission and receiving equipment would be fitted. Similar installations were being built all around the east and south coast, along with a set of operations rooms at Fighter Command HQ at Stanmore in West London. The aim was for Bawdsey to become the very first ‘Chain Home’ station to come on line, and that the network would become fully operational by September. All of this activity was being conducted in the utmost secrecy, information being shared on what they called a ‘need to know only’ basis.