4
THE BROWNS
September 1944Arthur Brown was away fighting in North Africa. His photo, unframed but with a flap-over, crimped-edged paper cover, was propped up on the Browns’ front-room mantelpiece.
The Browns had united forces with the Knights in the face of the enemy, time and loneliness. Amy Knight, having an only child, would take on the two Brown children one day a week after school, or all day in the holidays, in exchange for handing Jane over to Tilly Brown for two days. They lived in one of the terraced houses with low walls with stumps: the pre-war iron railings had been sawn off to provide ammunition.
The terraced houses were not like those on the other side of the street, which were semi-detached properties with fronts that were protected by high wooden, slatted fences. They
