‘When I came to live here with my husband and we eventually settled in a house and made new friends. I was talking to my neighbour one day, and we were talking about the war. Both her husband and my husband had fought in the war, both on the same side of, my husband fought alongside the Allies. She then said to me ‘well Mrs X, you will always be a foreigner over here. I couldn’t believe what she said. Why did she have to say that? My husband and her husband could both have lost their lives for this country and she said something like that. I was very upset.’

Robert Austin (1895-1973) went to the Royal College of Art, from 1913-15 and 1919-22, there was an interruption for War Service. From 1940-45, Austin was employed to specific works, it was during this time that he recorded the Coastal Command Stations of the Royal Air Force. He had hoped to be employed as an official war artist for the RAF but unfortunately this did not happen as there were already two artists employed. From 1942 he continued to produce images but of women involved in the war effort.

In a letter to the Walker Art Gallery in 1968, Austin talks about the drawing; ‘He very kindly spared me a little time before he went out and he was lucky in so far he didn’t get killed. They often were after I’d drawn them. This particular man was the actual chap doing the job, not as often happened, some underling dressed-up for the part.’