When George Bernard Shaw got married, reporters asked him his opinion of married life. He replied that he and his wife, being middle-aged and childless couldn’t possibly know anything about it.

‘Real married life,’ he said, ‘is the life of the boy and girl who pluck a daisy and bring down an avalanche on their shoulders.’

I dedicate this book to the young couples who married in the late thirties and early forties as a tribute to their courage and endurance, for the avalanche that fell on their shoulders was the Second World War.