“The dressings afterwards are so expensive,” says my father.

“Doesn’t the Invalid’s Fund pay anything toward it, then?” I ask.

“Mother has been ill too long.”

“Have you any money at all?”

He shakes his head: “No, but I can do some overtime.”

I know. He will stand at his desk folding and pasting and cutting until twelve o’clock at night. At eight o’clock in the evening he will eat some miserable rubbish they get in exchange for their food tickets, then he will take a powder for his headache and work on.

In order to cheer him up a bit I tell him a few stories, soldiers’ jokes and the like, about generals and sergeant-majors.