grateful as Norman, even though it wasn’t his father who might or might not be dead.

Nanny McPhee bowed graciously and led the boys back to the house.

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The Diary 21

Everyone is very stressed by barley-squashing, which does sometimes happen accidentally, causing Lisa from the Art Department to gnash her teeth. People get shouted at – I shouted at Liam, our Set Photographer (see Glossary), when all the poor man was trying to do was get out of the way. ‘You’re squashing the barley, Liam!’ I shrieked, and everyone looked and then I felt dreadful. And we have all discovered that hours of standing in a barley-field makes your eyes go all red and itchy. There’s lots of dust from the stalks, which crumble in your hands if you roll them between your fingers (which is fun so we all do it all the time) so that must be why. But – and this is important – in spite of all the difficulties, everyone agrees that it looks quite incredible and is one of the most beautiful things they have ever seen. So it WILL all be worth it.

Maggie Smith is our hero. She skips up and down the platforms and on and off wobbling boxes like a nineteen-year-old. She and I sit for hours telling stories and roaring with dirty laughter, so it’s not all bad, being in the barley. Maggie Gyllenhaal is looking after the children with immense tenderness, and Sam Kelly (our Mr Spolding) is lying down (this is the bit of the scene after Mr Spolding has fainted, you see) and being saintly, because Oscar (Vincent) keeps on tickling his nose hairs with barley stalks and laughing when he sneezes. Lil has been up the ladder for hours and is absolutely wonderful about it. Lil Woods, who plays Megsie, lives on a farm in real life, which is why you absolutely believe in her all the time. All in all, everyone is being quite remarkable. I am comfy in my costume because it is not so big and my nose is quite a sweet little buttony size now, so it doesn’t come off quite as often as the big one.

The next day: Oh. I have had an allergic reaction to the barley dust and keep having to put drops in my eyes. Still, only two more days like this and then they harvest the stuff – which is rather a shame but also will help because we’ll be able to get about.

Something quite funny except not really just happened. Lil was up the top of the ladder with the screwdriver, doing the bit where Megsie unscrews the cover, and she dropped the screwdriver on top of Arthur, the Boom Operator (see Glossary), and scraped his cheek. He is now wearing a hard hat, as is everyone near the bomb, because Lil has to throw the cover aside too and nearly took Darren’s (the Runner’s) head off with it first time. I had no idea it was all going to get so dangerous round here.

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The Story 21

How Cyril and Norman managed to survive the evening and night without telling anyone what they were up to, I have no idea. But they did. It was, of course, an indescribably miserable evening, with Mrs Green trying desperately to be brave and behave more or less normally but unable to stop huge tears from sliding down her cheeks all the time. Nanny McPhee had a very calming influence upon Vincent, who was in a state of hysteria. Finally it was Megsie who said they should all go to bed, and Celia agreed and everyone went upstairs. Vincent slept with his mum, and Megsie cried herself to sleep with Celia lying by her, open-eyed and sleepless with the horror of it all. Finally, very early, when Celia was asleep at last, Megsie crept out and joined her mother and brother in the big bed, but she didn’t notice that Cyril and Norman’s bed was empty except for two pillows they’d placed under the blankets to make it look as if they were still there.

I feel I ought to say a word here about the family’s reaction to the terrible news. In those days, every single person in England, whether they were rich or poor, believed that when a dreadful thing happened to you, you HAD to be brave about it. I mean, you had to try not to cry in front of people and you even had to try