The first Sunday in their new home, Mrs. Maycock lifted from the larder the joint Doris had brought in the day before. It was a leg of lamb. The cost was 6s. 9d., and it represented part of the ration of six books.

When it was safely in the oven, she and the girls started on the vegetables. There were twenty pounds of potatoes to peel. Eighteen-year-old Norman, who had spent 16s. of his 22s. pay as a conscript on fares so that he could be with the family for a few hours, sighed with relief when he heard there was no "spud bashing" for him. The potatoes were put into a large boiling pot and two baking tins. Four pounds of sprouts were cleaned and two pounds of peas were put into a pan. Doris totted up the cost of the vegetables, and said it was 5s. 2d.

With no work to do, Norman was free to press his Army trousers, and he did it where most of the work in the Maycock home is done - in the kitchen.

In another corner, Olive and Doris got out the dried egg and flour and began to mix a Yorkshire pudding. That put the cost of the Maycock Sunday dinner up by another 11d.

By this time, the Maycock house fairly hummed with activity. In the basement, Mr. Maycock had begun his usual Sunday morning task of mending the family's shoes. Dennis was making blackboards for his little nieces. Edward was splitting up more logs. John Stanley, busy making tiny armchairs, took time out to speak words that might well go down in history. "I love my mother-in-law," he said feelingly, "I was a lodger with the family before I married Marjorie. I made a vow to remain one of the family. The council has offered Marjorie and I alternative accommodation several times, but we always refused it. We preferred to stay with the big family, even after the children were born."

Upstairs, the kitchen was beginning to warm up. The children larked about with Monty, the good-tempered dog given to the family on VE-Day. Mrs. Maycock bad turned her attention to the sweet course. There were two tins of fruit, which had cost 1s. 7d. each (sixteen points). Doris had bought a sponge cake for 2s. 5d. for a trifle. Two of the family's eight pints of milk were earmarked for making custard. Olive opened a tin of sweetened milk and started to prepare two jellies for the children. They had cost 6d. and six points each, and were a special treat.

The children were sent to wash. After a hard morning's play, they were ready for lunch. The men were ready, too. The basement workshop was closed for the day. Mr. Maycock reached for the cloth cap he always wears. He had one more job to do before he sat down to dinner: to fetch lemonade for the children from the pub next door - six bottles at 6½d. a bottle.

And there was just time to slake his own thirst with a pint before it was dinner-time.

The children scrambled into their places. "Not a bad lunch for 27s.5½d." commented Mrs. Maycock, as she looked round the table with quiet satisfaction. "This is the time I like best of all. It's lovely to see all my family together." The family shouted its agreement.

"Let's celebrate," they said. Mrs. Maycock, hot from making dinner, was propelled towards the piano. The Maycocks, replete and jolly, began to sing. Their first song rang through the tall, old house so that solitary passers-by looked up in surprise. And the song they heard ring out was one they would have expected if they had known anything about the Maycock family: "The more we are together."