Annie Barrows

want to ask you some questions – they are highly personal. Dawsey said it would not be polite, but I say that’s a difference between men and women, not polite and rude.

In a good mood, I call my hair chestnut with gold glints. In a bad mood, I call it mousy brown.

Naturally curly hair is a curse, and don’t ever let anyone tell you different.

He was ten years older than me and was, of course, a god. He later changed into a bossy older brother, and later still, into one of my dearest friends.

You asked if all the Guernsey children were evacuated to England. No – some stayed, and when I missed Eli, I looked at the little ones around me and was glad he had gone. The children here had a bad time, for there wasn’t enough food to grow on.

It was a terrible thing to decide – send your children away to live among strangers, or let them stay with you. Maybe the Germans wouldn’t come, but if they did – how would they treat us? But, come to that, what if they invaded England, too – how would the children manage without their families beside them?

they were frantic to talk, but Jane told Elizabeth to keep them away. ‘I don’t want to hear them fuss,’ she said. ‘It’s bad for the baby.’ Jane had an idea that babies knew everything that happened around them, even before they were born.

when I remembered something Eli had once said to me. He was about five years old, and we were walking down to La Courbière to see the fishing boats come in. There was an old canvas bathing shoe lying in the middle of the path. Eli walked round it, staring. Finally, he said, ‘That shoe is all alone, Grandpa.’ I answered that yes it was. He looked at it again, and then we walked on. After a bit, he said, ‘Grandpa, that’s something I never am.’ I asked him, ‘What’s that?’ And he said, ‘Lonesome in my spirits.’

Yes, she did – slapped her right across the face. It was lovely.

As for Sidney, he sounds a very fine man – but bossy. It’s a failing common in men.