‘And see what else there is,’ Ellen said, pointing to the parcels, and they forgot the angel in order to see what Father Christmas had brought. The gifts they received were simple: hand-sewn handkerchiefs with their initials embroidered in the corners, woolly socks, mittens and bonnets to keep their ears warm, and as a special treat a sugar mouse each. When they opened the parcels from Edyta and Karl, Mary had been given a small wooden doll with movable legs and arms like the angel, and Thomas a wooden horse and cart with wheels that went round.

As Sarah’s doll was on top of the Christmas tree, Harry tied Mary’s next to it, but the girls were promised that they could play with them later if they wanted to.

They ate porridge for breakfast with bread and jam; and then Ellen stirred the beef stew and put it back on the fire where it had been simmering all night, the aroma filling the room.

‘Shall we go to church and sing a few carols?’ Harry suggested. ‘It’s a nice morning and you can wear your new clothes.’

He and Ellen had agreed that they wouldn’t buy each other anything, and would spend what little money they had on the children, but Harry had secretly ordered her a woollen shawl from the wife of one of the men at work who knitted them for only the cost of the wool.

‘Oh, but now you’re the onny one without a present,’ she said, wrapping it about her, and then laughed as she brought out a sugar mouse that she had kept back specially, knowing that he would bring her a gift. ‘Edyta’s mother sent them,’ she whispered to him. ‘She said they were traditional Hanukkah gifts.’

She checked the stew again and then they dressed and set off for St Mary’s church, an ancient building that had once been in the heart of the rural village of Sculcoates and was now surrounded by timber yards, tanning and glue factories, sugar refineries and a brewery. On the other side of the road was housing built for workers and their families.

They passed a burial ground with ancient leaning gravestones and Ellen thought that she might bring the children another day so that they could run around on the grass; surely no one would object to that as long as they didn’t commit any sacrilege.

‘We could have gone ’other way towards Charterhouse,’ Harry mused, ‘but I thought it would be interesting to see how ’village was before industry took over. It was quite separate from Hull, seemingly, but it’s now joined up.’

‘You can see outlines of how it used to be,’ Ellen murmured and pointed towards a stunted, lichen-covered apple tree struggling to survive in a small patch of muddy grass. Nearby, a trail of bramble and ivy climbed over a half demolished brick wall, perhaps once someone’s cottage home.