Peggy eyed the walking stick Kitty had taken to using now her pregnancy had advanced. ‘You’re not finding things too much, are you, dear?’ she asked with motherly concern. ‘Shouldn’t you be resting at home instead of coming here?’

‘If Roger can put up with being a POW, then I can certainly manage the added weight on my stump.’ She squeezed Peggy’s hand. ‘You do worry, Aunt Peg, and there’s really no need. The doctor’s passed us both fit, and a few hours a week helping out here won’t kill either of us – in fact we’d be going quite potty if we weren’t doing something useful.’

Peggy smiled at Charlotte, who was easing her back after bending to make a fuss of Daisy. ‘Are you sure you’ve got your dates right, dear? You look as if you’re about to pop.’

Charlotte giggled. ‘Quite sure. There are two of them in here,’ she said, caressing her enormous stomach, ‘and I’m eating for both of them when rationing allows, so it’s hardly surprising I’m so huge. Mother wrote and told me she got quite big with me, so it obviously runs in the family.’

Peggy smiled even though she fretted that both girls were doing too much with only three more months to go in their pregnancies – but then she hadn’t exactly rested during any of her own while she was running the boarding house, and certainly hadn’t when she’d been carrying Daisy.

She followed the girls into the echoing warehouse, where the sound of the music coming from the wireless was fighting a losing battle with all the chattering. It was a terrible shame that Kitty’s parents were in Argentina, and Charlotte’s were up in the Midlands, but Peggy was delighted to have the chance to mother them, and was very excited at the thought of three little babies to cuddle and croon over.

Peggy had chosen to volunteer for the Red Cross as it had branches all over the world and was almost wholly a voluntary organisation which did the most wonderful work, not only for the sick and wounded, but for the men and women who were in internment camps. She felt proud that in her own small way she was bringing comfort to those who needed it most.