'On incident stays clear in my mind. It was on one of the rare days, other than Christmas and New Year, when my grandmother and I went into the sitting room above the shop. The time was late afternoon, just before tea, and I was standing near the window, looking through one of the volumes of a garish and expensive "History of the World War" which my father had bought from a door-to-door salesman who had persuaded him that "it would be very useful for the little boy's education". Some illustration in the book -a photograph or drawing of a battleship or aeroplane or shell-burst or trench warfare - must have caught my fancy, and, as I noticed that John Slater was looking out from his window on the opposite side of the street, I held up my picture against the glass so that he might see it. The street was narrow enough for anyone with good eyesight even to read the caption if it were printed in large enough letters. John nodded and promptly held up a picture in a book he was reading. I turned over a page or two and then held up another picture. John responded. And soon we found ourselves caught up in a competition...'