During the war when the sirens had gone off and everyone had gone to the shelter people would come round and burgle the houses while they were empty. So my family and others would leave a dog in the house while they were in the shelter. And these dogs would be in the house as shrapnel was hitting the roofs of the houses.

One day my brother who was tiny was crawling across the room and our dog suddenly pounced on him and bit his cheek. And we believed it was because the dog had been traumatised by the sounds of the shrapnel. Luckily the the dog had a tooth missing so when he bit into my brother he didn’t take the flesh away, so they were able to sew the flesh back on. When my brother died in his 70’s he still had this scar on the side of his face.