VE day.
Thinking again about war time Britain I recalled the evacuees we had staying with us.
The first were two imps from Wandsworth High School whose idea of fun was to try to execute the cat by hanging. The cat and my mother gave them a hard time over this, and they were soon sent packing.
The next to come was a family; dad who worked at the local munitions dump; mum who tried to keep house in one room downstairs, one room upstairs, and a share of the kitchen and lavatory (the bath was being used to store water in case of enemy action); there were two infants, a boy and a girl.
My mother soon realised that our guests coming from London's East End were part of an extended family set-up where the oldest female directed household tasks and provided answers to housekeeping problems.
My mother assumed this task.
One day my grandfather sent down two rabbits he had acquired. My mother gave one to our guests. She showed her how to paunch and clean the rabbit, and settled a time for her to have use of the stove to cook it.
We ate ours, and very good it was. The following day, having heard nothing about the other one, she enquired as to how they had got on. "It was quite nice", the woman replied, "but we spent ages getting the fur out of our teeth!" She had roasted it fur and all.
