Jaye Marie and Anita Dawes

I was born into an era when fear and relief played equal roles in the minds of many. Fourteen years of wartime rationing had only ended a few years before and the memories of that bloody conflict were still fresh in the minds, hearts and bodies of every adult, many of whom had also lived through the Great War. Few families were intact or wholly unscathed and the scars of those years would, in many subtle ways, affect my newborn generation.

The ‘war to end all wars’ had been rapidly followed by World War II. The Vietnamese conflict was at its height, the Cold War showed no sign of abating and there was no sign at all of peace bought at a cost of millions of lives. My own father was posted on active service with the Royal Engineers just after I was born. Even for the average family enjoying…