The Fortified RoomPalmers Green, North LondonMy grandmother on my mother’s side, Elizabeth Byron, suffered very badly from arthritis and didn’t fancy the damp of an Anderson Shelter.

However, so convinced was she that war with Germany was coming, that she got her local builder, a Mr McAdam, to design and prepare a fortified room for our family. This was what we called the drawing room at the time, and it had French windows on to the garden.

A “Blast wall” two bricks thick and about nine feet high was built about a yard from the French windows which were covered with thick brown paper. The fire place was completely sealed against gas attack, and the room was shorn up with baulks of timber.

During the Blitz we would spend every night in this room with our nearest neighbours invited in also. Well into the period of almost nightly bombing, a Morrison shelter was added. I thought this shelter was a really exciting adventure home.