Mum told me a funny (true) story when I went home to Wales yesterday. During the war, her mother was at the hairdressers in Penarth when German bombers raided. I imagine this would have been in 1940 or 1941, when Mum was 12. Her father heard a loud noise, and went into the garden to investigate. He crawled back to the house under the shelter of the garden wall after experiencing a loud explosion. (A bomb going about 500 yards away.)

When the all clear sounded, the hairdressers emerged from the shelter – and remembered that they’d left my grandma under big hairdryer. She knew nothing of the air-raid because of the noise of the dryer!