Mo, who had been listening round-eyed, popped a piece of bacon into her mouth and spoke rather thickly through it. ‘Oh, Auntie Glenys, whatever did you do? And what a naughty little girl to throw her pencil case.’

Glenys smiled. ‘She wasn’t really a naughty little girl; in fact she was the daughter of the school’s headmaster, but she was very spoilt. She thought she could do just as she liked, but she soon learned her mistake. When I ran out of the classroom after her all my pupils followed, and Mr Mathias saw the children streaming past his classroom windows so he came out to see what was going on. He gave a great bellow, ordering the children back to their classroom at the top of his voice, and I was just wondering whether I should tell him that it was his daughter who had started the riot when he said, “Hands up who was responsible for this behaviour?” and to my surprise his daughter, little Margaret Mathias, put her hand up at once. “It was me,” she said. “I don’t like school. But I did like you and my mammy said and came here, so may I go home now, please? I’ve been to school.” Mr Mathias grinned at me and then turned back to his daughter. “School isn’t just for a day,” he said gently. “And in your heart, little Margaret, you know it. You’ve seen your sister Mary going off to school each morning in term time, and that’s what you will be doing until you are a really big girl. Now go back to your classroom and don’t let me hear any more nonsense about running away.”’

Everyone sitting round the table laughed, though Mo said rather wistfully that she had seldom been allowed to go to school. ‘The Huxtables kept Jimmy and me at home and never explained to the teacher that we weren’t sagging off,’ she said. ‘And then there was the boots rule . . .’

Nain raised her eyebrows. ‘The boots rule? What was that?’ she enquired.

It was Jimmy who answered. ‘No boots, no school,’ he said succinctly. ‘And if the teacher thought you were sagging off, or you was caught by the attendance officer during school hours, you could get the cane.’

Mo broke in. ‘I asked old Ma Huxtable to tell the teacher it were her that kept Jimmy off when she sold his boots, but she just laughed. Oh, how we hated that woman, ain’t that so, our Jimmy?’

Sam Trewin groaned aloud. ‘If I’d only known . . .’ he began bitterly, but Glenys broke in.

‘You couldn’t have known, and I reckon we all appreciate what you’d have done if you’d had the slightest idea of how your children were being treated,’ she said. ‘It was a pity that no one at the school looked into why they were so seldom there, but teachers are busy people and in many ways their hands are tied.’