When I was a young child of four or five, my grandfather would say to me in his cockney accent, “Swee’ar’, fetch me legs for me,” and I would dutifully bring him what he called “his legs”—steel rods screwed into the heels of his shoes for support with a leather cuff at the top which would rest just below the back of his knees. When he lifted up his pant legs to put on these supports, it revealed gaping holes in his calves. One hole was so large I could see from one side of his calf right through to the other. Somehow, I knew I wasn’t to ask any questions but that image has stayed with me all these years. My grandfather, Ainger Roger Berry, the oldest of seven children, was born on March 15, 1879, in London, within the sound of Bow Bells. As a boy seaman in the Royal Navy in the early 1...