My mother learned that she was carrying me at about the same time the Second World War was declared; with the family talent for magic realism, she once told me she had been to the doctor's on the very day.
“There came to port last Sunday night the queerest little craft, without an inch of rigging on; I looked and looked - and laughed. It seemed so curious that she should cross the unknown water, and moor herself within my room - my daughter! O my daughter!”