My father settled in London from his native Rome in 1931, teaching Italian and writing verse. Interned at the outbreak of war and later conscripted to serve in The Pioneer Corps.

He would often lead us on tours around his adopted city so on one such Sunday as we walked up Exhibition Road he explained about the craters in the stone walls of the museum left by German planes strafing the doorway of the building.

He described how if you heard the drone of a ‘doodlebug’ overhead which then fell silent you had less than 2 minutes to take cover in the nearest basement before it hit destroying everything wherever it fell.