At the end of last summer, which is September in London where I live, the biographer Julie Summers sent me an early proof of her new book. So I grabbed a cup of tea and a straw hat and climbed up to our garden, which is on the roof, in order to read it in peace.

I live in an old house which has a rare quirk; a flat roof rather than the traditional pitched one. This is because it was rebuilt after World War II when it was hit by one of the thousands of Nazi bombs during the Blitz. So it felt especially atmospheric as the place to be reading Dressed for War, the story of Vogue’s wartime editor, Audrey Withers, who lived through the long nights under bombardment while never forgetting to put on gloves and a hat.