I have just been chatting with my 97 year old grandmother who was telling me how she remembered going to see pianist Dame Myra Hess play at Reading Town Hall some time during the war. The name rang a bell and I remembered watching a programme about lunchtime concerts at the National Gallery which took place during the war when all the paintings had been removed to the mines of Wales. I was sure the pianist was the same and indeed, looking her up on the web I discovered this was the case.

I’ve never heard my grandmother say anything about this before and although it’s just a short memory and nothing of great significance, it nonetheless gives me a way into the past which wasn’t there before.