At the beginning we lived in a poky little maisonette and had a job to get by on my wages. Later, when I was transferred to the West Bletchley branch, things were better, but Hilda’s attitude didn’t change. Always that ghastly glooming about money! The milk bill! The coal bill! The rent! The school fees! We’ve lived all our life together to the tune of ‘Next week we’ll be in the workhouse.’ It’s not that Hilda’s mean, in the ordinary sense of the word, and still less that she’s selfish. Even when there happens to be a bit of spare cash knocking about I can hardly persuade her to buy herself any decent clothes. But she’s got this feeling that you ought to be perpetually working yourself up into a stew about lack of money. Just working up an atmosphere of misery from a sense of duty. I’m not
