[The author was the youngest of fourteen children. She would have been six years old at the outbreak of World War I in 1914]. 

During the [first world] war, my sister Alice came to live in the bungalow next door, so that she could have company whilst her husband was in the Army. She had two children, a little younger than myself and it was nice to have someone about my own age to play with as well as [older sister] Louie. One day during the school holiday, mother and Alice went up to Ashford to do some shopping, leaving Louie and I at home with strict instructions not to get into any mischief—as though we would!—and what children wouldn’t, being suddenly let loose from parental control and school discipline. We looked around to see what we could get up to, as “forbidden fruit is always the sweetest!” We did a few things which we knew were not permissable [sic], put the gramophone on and listened to our favourite records, set the chimney on fire by tipping paraffin on hot coals, and the flames coming out of the chimney had us petrified. A man passing put this out for us, and we heaved a sigh of relief…