I find Lewis more convincing in his fiction and in his social critique than in theology per se.

Because of Kaiser Bill (Lenin’s friend), three of my grandparents changed religion for the second time. My mum’s mum – because my mum’s dad came to stay with them (after his C-in-C stood down their army). My dad’s parents – because their neighbour lady lost her husband and son and spoke about her church.

Dad was about 4 when he asked his family (in south London) “What’s that noise?” and they said, “It’s the guns in France”.

My mum recounted that she could hear the bombers approaching an hour before the sirens sounded (evidently not everyone could).

She was in a bus behind another bus and the other bus got splintered to pieces and that’s all she would say about that.

The brother she didn’t tell us she had, was parted from her when she was 16 and he was 12. She told us her dad died in 1937 but he died in 1954; lots of families said things like that (we didn’t know the enemy wasn’t coming here too).

Dad guarded a hut for 4 years and the Army educated him as he hadn’t been to good schools (and he lost his mum young). He was a requisition clerk for a year: that was crucial as generals would need him in the middle of the night. Latterly his unit were about to follow the Arnhem landings but got diverted to the rear of the Normandy invasion and he didn’t like the damage he saw there.

Dad swopped shoe mending to become a very junior civil servant (with a long commute) and also served as trade union rep. He wrote a few books on local history and gained “commendation” in a story competition. He and mum were amateur painters / sculptors a little bit. Dad played lovely Burgmuller tunes on the piano.

Dad and I both learned to drive when I was 21.

Mum’s jam tarts were amazing. Dad cooked savouries well. Mum’s gardening was not very hands-on, but somehow with greenfingered enough results.

Mum would send me up the plum tree to pick plums then shout at me to come down because I would go slow (the way that works for me) and she wanted me to be instantaneous.

My favourite RE teacher who retired when I was 13 used to try to crack jokes about “Useless Eustace” (he was probably about Lewis’s age).

Mum could sell everything from travel tickets (before I was born), wool, coal, wine, metals. By age 14 she had been employed by the order that ran her school, as part-time teaching assistant to younger children. After her factory had got bombed she ran the typing pool for a government in exile and, later, boilermakers. She taught typing (including to disabled children, to their delight) and languages, interpreted for a dairy board, and occasionally translated our ethnologist friend’s foreign catalogues (good fun).

All her jobs were part-time. She gained a degree with the Open University.