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stamped their little hob-nailed boots. They’d won a second battle. I came out in a secondary rash, a penicillin rash, worse than my own private bacteriological one.
    I agreed with Ade, life is hit and miss. Not every doctor is a miracle healer.

Chapter 4
Just William
    Chas threw himself heart, body and soul into our business and we were busy from morn till night. With no time for a mid-day meal, we lived on rolls and tea, taking our main meal in the evening with our children, Susan and William. Susan, nearly thirteen, was at a girls’ grammar school. She had homework to keep her busy in the evenings but was a girl who made friends easily, and kept them. She had a happy social time at weekends, so, although she would have preferred our previous life at Forest Gate with mother always there to greet her, she settled down quite happily. For my son the changeover was not so easy, although he did not complain. We were on a busy main road with no children as neighbours. Here he could not go out to play. He sorely missed his two dear friends, George and Harry, who had lived nearby at Forest Gate. They had kind parents and William had joined in their happy childhood life, starting their own ‘archaeological’ dig in their back garden! Their father owned a dolly mixture factory and he would make ‘meals’ for the children’s games: pork chops, chips and peas, or fruit and custard, all made out of sugar on little plates.
    William had been happy at his infants’ school, too. He seemed to have been born with an adult manner of speech but this was accepted as being William. It was a modern school for those times and each child was treated as a separate individual. They were taught to play together in order to live together. The mothers in my road had been my friends, our husbands serving soldiers; we had worried together, cleared up our bomb damage together, and together we watched over our children, taking it in turns to collect them from school, checking that they had not absent-mindedly left any of their belongings behind in the school cloakroom. The children played happily and safely in our quiet road, mothers were not far away if needed.
    At his new school William’s manner of speech caused great amusement among the other children. For instance, at a time of argument, dissension or playground battles, he would suggest ‘taking the matter to arbitration’. My instinct told me his verbal literacy was not appreciated by the head or his teacher.
    â€˜Surely William would complain if things were not all right? He seems happy enough to me,’ declared Chas hopefully, probably wishing that I was as conscientious with regard to the shop as I was about William. My son never complained that he was unhappy, although his body did, for he too developed a severe rash which would just not respond to treatment and in the end he had to attend hospital.
    Susan, on holiday from school, took him to the hospital and arrived home again almost in tears. The lady specialist had enquired where was the child’s mother , she must attend. I spent an uncomfortable half-hour with this sincere and earnest lady. She dismissed my reasons for previous non-attendance with a wave of her hand. ‘A busy shop!’ (I’d have liked to see Chas’s face at that juncture.) She was extremely beautiful, with shining black hair, enormous, emerald-green eyes and alabaster skin, her beauty marred for me only by her large, unfeminine ears, which she had accentuated with golden hoop ear-rings.
    Suddenly her impatience seemed to leave her and she placed one hand on my knee and spoke kindly, slowly and deliberately. When my son returned from school each day I must drop everything, go upstairs with him to our flat and let him talk to me, read his books to me, or do anything else he wanted to do. I was stunned by this ‘prescription’; it was all I ever wanted to do; possibly this was the part of the day I hated