The letters from Bob and Charlie were rather more sobering, and Peggy experienced a deep ache of dread as she read them. Bob had left school and was now working full-time on the farm, which he loved. He’d joined the local Civil Defence and was also a part-time junior plane spotter, learning the craft of identifying enemy and Allied planes as they flew over the sprawling Somerset hills and reporting back to HQ. Bob wrote that he was hoping to remain on the farm and not be called up when he turned eighteen next year, but if the call came, he was prepared to do his duty for his country and make both his father and his grandfather proud.

‘Oh, Bob,’ she sighed tremulously. ‘They’re already proud of you. Please God stick to being a farmer and serve your country that way.’ She finished the letter, the words blurred by her unshed tears, and carefully tucked it back in its envelope.

Charlie’s writing, as usual, was appalling and it took a while to decipher the single page. The scrawl was typical of her youngest son, for it was written in haste and great enthusiasm, without much care for spelling or punctuation. He clearly had far more interesting things to do than write letters home, and she suspected Anne had had to sit him down and make him do it before he disappeared off again for the day.

Peggy pushed away the memories of the eight-year-old boy she’d been forced to send away once the nearby school had been bombed. He’d always had scabby knees and a dirty, impish face beneath a shock of dark, unruly hair – but his eyes always shone with mischief and a simple delight in life, which clearly hadn’t changed even though he was now thirteen.

Charlie’s excitement at having managed to fix an old farm truck that everyone had abandoned as unrepairable leapt from the page. He was about to embark on a new project, which entailed restoring an ancient car he’d found in one of the barns, for if he could get it to go, he’d be able to drive it round the farm.

Peggy raised an eyebrow at this, for Charlie was harum-scarum, and the thought of the damage he could do behind the wheel of any motor made her shiver.

She returned to the letter to discover that he was looking forward to going up to the senior school in the autumn, but only because he’d been assured a place on the rugby and football teams, and would at last be allowed to wear long trousers like Bob.

Peggy’s smile faded as she read the final paragraph. Charlie hoped the war would last long enough so he could enlist into the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers and join his father out in Burma, which sounded far more thrilling than being stuck in a classroom.