The 1940s were years of war and austerity. If you are interested in that decade, this book may interest you. The Bedfordshire village of my youth, where produce was grown to feed the nation no longer exists. It is now commuter land, fed by Tesco, the fields buried under tarmac and brick. There is no Forge, no Water Mill, no pond, or barns for the barn owls. This book tells of that vanished life. Maureen Kerr spent her young years from 1935 to 1953 in Bedfordshire, as part of an agricultural labouring family, living in squalid conditions in a cottage in a lane called "the Alley", in Flitwick, which was then a village. It is now a town. Maureen left that life behind her when she moved to Scotland in 1953, where she became the wife of Alvis Kerr, a marine engineer. They now live quietly in the village of Crook of Devon, near Kinross.