(From the Observer)

Today is the anniversary of 1944. People did different things then, and lived different lives. This Observer reminiscipackage features contemporary memories from a time when a five speed, three litre Ford Capri was the stuff of a madman's dreams.

INTERVIEWER: What was the food situation like in those days?

LOUISA SMAMS: Dreadful, of course it was dreadful. Sometimes we even had to eat bits of the house. Bricks, and... the mortar was tastier than the actual bricks because after all, it had been mixed up once, so you could mix it up again. You used to try to get it off other people's houses, of course, houses that had been bombed and broken down, but sometimes you had to eat your own house, and it was better to find yourself without a house than without food.

INTERVIEWER: What was the electricity like?

KITTY FROSLIN: Electricity was very, very expensive, but you had to have a light of some kind, so we had the, I don't know, we thought it was quite a good idea, you see babies have such a lot of energy, they're always on the go, so we used to connect the house to a baby, and that used to keep the lights going.

INTERVIEWER: What do you remember about 1945?

SMAMS: I don't remember much about 1945, because that was my hibernation year. You'd go and get your ticket and find out when you had to hibernate, and then you'd be given just a few weeks to get yourself organised. You know, you knew you had to keep going, you got into a box and curled up and went to sleep. It was our bit of the war effort really, to keep ourselves out of the way.

INTERVIEWER: What can you tell about the war?

FROSLIN: During the war, everyone was called up to be in the War Cabinet. I was called up to be the Foreign Secretary for a month. I was in meetings and having to express opinions, and had to travel abroad. I went over to France and I met the French foreign minister who seemed quite impressed, because my French really was rather good. So we had conversations with me understanding everything he said and answering him, but whether I answered him properly I don't know.

Shame he didnt mention the miles they had to walk to and from school in the snow uphill both ways.