It was the spring of 2005 and I was walking around Nelson in East Lancashire, when I had a sudden flashback to a conversation I had in London in the spring of 2004, a few months before meeting Clare. How could this be?

An old mate of mine, Robert, had had a bit of a shock. His Dad, Len, suffered a heart attack one Friday night before having the traditional fish and chips (yes, it’s the law for us too). The only problem was that Robert was about to fly out for work to America.

On the Monday after his attack, I got myself up early and out on the bus to University College Hospital just past Euston station. I bought the required copies of The Sun and Daily Mirror only to see Len sat up, right as rain, perusing the pages of Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables.

Conversation for the first visit was the drama of the previous Friday evening, how he felt, what had happened and what the doctors had told him. Len was more interested in what time I started work and whether I’d be late and not to worry about coming. The next morning we spoke more about his stay in hospital and as I had more time we discussed his time during the Second World War.

I knew of evacuations but had never spoken to anyone with direct experience of it. In 1941 he was evacuated to Harpenden to a woman he candidly described as a “horror”. She was only interested in taking the money for doing her duty and so they were put on a train and taken up to Nelson in Lancashire.

Len said he, his brother Wally, sister Betty and cousin Billy Bugg initially slept for two nights in Edge End School. Then they were taken to a hall near the station where people came and picked them. Mindful of his experience in Harpenden, Len was pleased to see Wally and Betty taken up by some nice people and then Billy and he were the last two.

The people running the operation took the two young boys and luckily for them they were on opposite sides of the street in Wellington Street. Len was living with a woman called Mary Horsefield, whom he came to call Aunty Mary. He went to school over the canal at Lomeshaye School and said that he had a good time there. There were no problems from the other children and he could still see his sister, brother and cousin. His other sister, Sheila, came up to visit once and asked to stay, so she completed her schooldays in Lancashire and started work in a sweet factory making Victory V Gums and Lozenges. He recalled a large chimney with the writing Victory on it and also the Alhambra Cinema near the indoor market.

A few years later, having turned 20, young Len was on a motoring holiday with his cousin and as they were coming away from Blackpool he decided to make a brief detour to Nelson. He knocked at the door and a lady answered, “Have you got room for two evacuee’s missus?” They were both welcomed with open arms even though the family had suffered a recent bereavement and their grandmother was laid out in the parlour.

Len’s mother, Minnie, kept in touch with the families through birthday and Christmas cards and in 1962; Mr Horsefield came to stay with Len for the FA Cup Final versus Tottenham to cheer on Burnley. Len drove him to Wembley on the Saturday morning.

You might ask what this has to do with Clare and me. Well, Clare worked as a practice manager for a GP practice based in the old Yarnspinners Mill in Carr Road.

As you leave the main entrance and take a slow walk up you are on the edge of the car park for Morrisons. You come to the junction with Every Street and take a look at the street sign. It is called Wellington Street, scene of many a happy memory for a very grateful Islington man and his family.