We were given a wonderful ‘vintage’ book for Christmas. Bombed London by Hanslip Fletcher was published in 1947. The Preface, while bemoaning what had been lost (Bloomsbury squares being gated, fields three miles from Charing Cross ablaze with buttercups) expressed pride because ‘today we are all conscious of being citizens of a noble and heroic city where at least ideas are free and liberal’. Let’s hold on to this. The frontispiece is St Paul’s through Bow Church Window. That St Paul’s survived the blitz was a miracle in itself.