I didn’t know a time when there wasn’t a war because I spent all my time from the age of two or three to eight in a coal cellar really.

The speaker recalls a childhood so dominated by wartime conditions that conflict felt like the permanent background of life. The detail of spending ages two or three through eight “in a coal cellar” evokes air-raid sheltering and domestic deprivation, suggesting fear, confinement, and the normalization of emergency routines. The quote’s force comes from its matter-of-fact tone (“really”), which underscores how thoroughly war can shape a child’s sense of what is ordinary. It also hints at the long aftereffects of such early experiences: memory, identity, and worldview formed under threat rather than stability.