Some evenings we went to the pictures with Dad, to the Hammersmith Odeon. Dad would change out of the clothes he wore to work and put on a suit and tie and his shiny black shoes. We saw The Guns of Navarone one evening, and The Battle of Britain another time, for Jim’s birthday. I didn’t understand what was going on in the The Battle of Britain, but I could tell the difference between the German planes and the British planes. I recognized the Spitfires and the Messerschmitts, from Jim’s Airfix kits.

Dad always did one of two things at the pictures. Either he kicked his shoes off, put his feet up on the seat in front, and went to sleep, or he said “Back in half an hour” and went across the road, to the pub, the Britannia. And he came back before the film was over.