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stared. It was a beautiful thing, almost a couple of feet long, encased in veneered wood with a dark grain across it as if it had been washed by the sea. On one half of the front was the speaker, the overlaid wood cut into a sunburst. On the other half, set into a metal surround, was the dial, with little ebony knobs underneath it. Out from it, louder now, were coming the sounds of violins and trumpets and other instruments all pitching in together, and it gave me a queer feeling. Made me want to cry suddenly though I didn’t know why. Even Len went quiet.
    I didn’t get any sense out of anyone until Mom got up to put the kettle on.
    ‘So – whose is it?’
    ‘Len’s. He bought it. First wage packet.’ She moved her mouth close to my ear. ‘We made up the extra for him – saw he had enough.’ Her little brother. The one person in the world she’d kill to protect.
    ‘Is that yours then, Len?’ He looked as if he was going to burst, head nodding up and down like crazy.
    ‘Pleased as punch he is,’ Dad said. As if he needed to.
    I squeezed Len’s shoulder. ‘Aren’t you lucky? It’s really smashing.’
    Next day, Mom dragged Eric off to school for his evacuation rehearsal. The schools opened specially, even though it was the summer holidays. Mom had put away her ideas of being able to wangle a passage with him now it had dawned on her that Dad might have to go sooner than she’d realized. Eric had to go off with a small holdall for his clothes and a little bag for his ‘iron rations’ and his gas mask.
    It was a peaceful morning in one way. Dad sat and read the Sports Argus and we didn’t clear away breakfast for a good hour. Len settled himself down by his wireless and kept twiddling the dial, catching torn up bits of sound until he heard something he fancied.
    I was supposed to be cooking lunch, but I sat down for a bit too, feeling that without Mom around I could leave my hair loose and straggly and no one would tick me off for the grubby stains on my frock. I stretched my legs out in front of me, seeing how skinny and pale they looked, and wished I didn’t have a figure like a clothes-horse. But all the time worries about Eric kept flickering through my mind and I had a queasy ball of tension inside me. I thought about my family all being split up and suddenly they didn’t seem so bad any more and I wanted things to stay as they were.
    ‘Dad?’
    ‘Mm?’
    ‘If there’s a war will you have to go straight away?’
    He laid the paper down in his lap and looked ahead. Outside someone was having a fire and rags of smoke kept drifting past the window. ‘Could be any time now, love.’
    ‘Oh.’ The music carried on quietly behind us.
    Dad turned his head to look at me. ‘I know I’m not all your mother would want . . .’ He couldn’t seem to finish that bit. ‘You will look after her for me, won’t you?’
    I nodded and he looked away again. ‘You’re a good wench.’
    That morning, while we were waiting and wondering, I heard a singer who was to become one of my favourites. Her voice came from the wireless strong and dark as gravy browning. We sat quite still while she was singing. The second she’d finished, Len pointed at the wireless and said, ‘Gloria.’
    ‘What you on about, Len? They said her name was Anne Shelton.’
    He shook his head hard and pointed again. ‘Gloria.’
    I realized he meant the wireless itself, and I saw how much it suited her. Glorious Gloria. From then on she was never known as anything but Gloria.
    One Wednesday night we were all listening to Band Waggon , all in stitches at Arthur Askey, Len laughing at us laughing – hor hor hor – out of his belly. We had Gloria turned up high and I thought she was the best thing that had ever happened because before that I never ever remember us all sitting laughing together. Even Mom looked happy, and I saw Dad watching her, all hopeful.
    And then she stopped. Right in the middle of it, no more Gloria. Len was out of