Another war story and all the sadder for being based on Macaulay’s own experience of losing her belongings, included a cache of love letters, when her London flat was bombed. A story that’s drenched in melancholy and regret, and which perfectly conveys how things, artefacts, can provide a sense of security even if they’re shut away, never used or looked at.

First published in London Calling, ed. Storm Jameson, 1942. Collected in Wave Me Goodbye: Stories of the Second World War, ed. Anne Boston, Penguin, 1989