Gerry Moore rated the nine years he spent in Garsington as an evacuee during and after the Second World War as among the best of his life.

But conditions in the village in the 1940s were still fairly primitive.

As we have recalled, Gerry came to Oxfordshire with his parents from London at the start of the Second World War.

His father was butler to a well-to-do Jewish family, who made Garsington Manor their temporary home.

Gerry described the manor as a "dark, gloomy and uncomfortable place", so he was relieved when his father decided to rent a cottage a mile away.

He writes: "The cottage had one room on the ground floor, with a small kitchen under the stairs, and a single bedroom on the first floor.

"There was no water supply to the cottage so all our water had to be carried in buckets from a communal tap 500 yards along the road.

"This was my job before going to school. How I hated Mondays, washing day - this meant four journeys to the tap.

"As we had no bathroom, a daily wash was carried out in the kitchen.

"Friday night was the time for the once-a-week bath. Buckets of water were heated on the gas stove and poured into a tin bath in front of the living room fire.

"As we were not on main drainage, all our waste water was thrown on to the garden. Toilet arrangements were basic - a two-seater earth closet in a shed at the bottom of the garden."

More of Gerry's memories soon.