Written for readers who have finished Book 1.
The flat-whistling kettle is a small, battered hero of the London kitchen — knocked out of tune one hard night in the Blitz and kept anyway, dents and all. It becomes the family's running joke, the thing Bill teases Vera about from a far-off port and the thing the neighbours squabble over fondly. An ordinary object that survives, a little worse for wear and all the more loved for it — the whole series in miniature.