"It contained a camp bed covered with the remains of a wartime afghan, made up of lopsided squares, ill-knitted scraps of clashing wool and full of dropped stitches; there was a chest of drawers leaning drunkenly over its missing leg, a kitchen chair and armchair with the brown cloth of its seat rent by the hernial pressure of escaping springs, and the arms worn thin by many grimy hands. There was also a small gas fire beneath the mantelpiece, on which stood a pair of hideous plaster Alsatians standing guard each side of an embroidered picture of a crinoline lady in a cottage garden."

Lynne Reid Banks, The L-shaped Room, Penguin, London 1965, pp 43/44