‘It’s all in my head, but I could write it down sometime I suppose.’ Georgia slips the letter back into its envelope. ‘Ursula was John’s second wife. I don’t know a great deal about the first one; it was a forbidden subject. Annie wouldn’t even say her name. But it seems as though she was the one who wrote that horrid strawberry letter.’ Georgia pushes her chair back from the table and stands up. ‘I think I need to rest for a little while now, I’m quite tired all of a sudden. We can do another box tomorrow.’

Chapter 64

July 2011

When Tess and Baxter come down for breakfast in the morning, the second box is open and Georgia has already started to make an attempt at organising things.

‘Tea?’ offers Tess.

‘It will be CT3 for me; I was up early. But yes, tea and toast. And marmalade as well, please.’

‘Are you getting anywhere?’

‘Sort of. This is Finlay’s box. There are a lot of school exercise books, and what looks like university notes. And there are these.’ Georgia has already laid some items out on the table. ‘Pip, Squeak and Wilfred, the First World War medals.’ The medal ribbons are bright, but the medals themselves are dull metal. ‘Everyone got them, pretty much. It looks as though Finlay gave up university to go and fight because he was there from 1914 but sadly he didn’t last until the end.’ She picks up a letter and hands it to Tess. ‘This is from his commanding officer. He was killed during an offensive in France and led his men courageously, whatever that means.’ Her voice drops. ‘I suppose whatever the circumstances were, being described as brave might have been some comfort to the people who loved him.’

She picks up a square of brown cardboard, folded in on itself, the diagonals looking like the start of a child’s fortune teller. ‘And this is a Dead Man’s Penny. They were issued to the families of the fallen.’ She slips the metal disc out of the cardboard sleeve and passes it to Tess. It’s dark grey, almost black, and about five inches across.

‘His name is on it, see? And the date that he died. Some families had special stands made so they could put the medal on a mantelpiece as a remembrance. But that happened later.’ She paused. ‘Annie always left the scullery door open for him, as Ursula had.’

‘Why?’

‘Because his body was never found. She didn’t believe that he was gone, even though they went to see the place where he was supposed to have died. It’s the reason they weren’t here for the census in 1921.’

‘Could that explain why there were all those notes about trains and ferries?’