I was a child at the time and innocent of such matters, but I believe that just after the 1939-45 War, people had a different attitude towards animals than they do now. Animals were dispensible. They could be given as gifts and set aside if unwanted. Their needs came second to the family's. They were fed on scraps and leftovers. In the austere conditions we lived in just after the war, we were brought up to clear our plates and sometimes even licked them clean. Pets often went hungry.

My Aunty Daisy never quite cottoned on to the fact that her sister, my mother, could barely afford to feed her four children, let alone family pets. Aunt Daisy came to see us nearly every week and always bought us sweets and comics (often secondhand because they were cheaper) from Barking Market. Occasionally she would take a trip to Romford where they used to hold a regular livestock sale in the middle of town. Cattle, sheep, pigs etc., were auctioned off from pens set up in the main street, while little stalls on the pavement sold litters of newborn, kittens, puppies, rabbits, chicks etc., all probably cross breeds and semi wild. Aunty Daisy thought they were so cuddly and cute and could not resist buying one (and sometimes more than one) for us kids.

She would just turn up at the house saying, "Look what I've brought you." We would find and old cardboard box to put the latest animal/s in and spend 20 minutes or so, stroking, petting, prodding, "ooohing" and "aaahing", and deciding on a name. After that we mostly lost interest.

None of these animals was ever taken to a vet for injections or treatment. As they grew bigger, dogs were never taken for a walk, they lived on scraps. Most never reached maturity. They went blind or got distemper or ended up in some other horrible state before mysteriously disappearing. I did actually witness my father drowning one poor creature in a tin bath in the back yard.

I assume the cats ran away as soon as they became adults and started their own wild colonies on the surrounding bomb sites.

When Aunty Daisy presented us with a set of six fluffy little yellow chicks. They were housed in a shoe box by the fireplace. No one expected them to live long. Miraculously they outgrew that box and another larger and eventually Dad had to buy 6 yards of chicken wire to house them in the back garden.

They wandered aimlessly around this little shelterless pen for some weeks and grew to full size. They never produced eggs as far as I know and one by one they disappeared. I never knew where they went. All I remember was that just before Christmas, the last one, a scrawny old cockerel with a diseased foot who hopped around the pen on one leg, keeled over and dropped dead.

When Dad found it he dug a hole at the end of the garden and buried it. A couple of days later, Mrs Appleby, an old lady from across the road, was talking to Mum on the doorstep and enquired about the chickens. When Mum told her the news about the old cock, Mrs Appleby insisted Dad dig it up for her. She and Mr Appleby and their family ate it for their Sunday dinner!!

As I write this I feel ashamed for my family's attitude to animals, but that was the way it was.