‘Thank you. Thank you,’ the husband said fervently. ‘You are kind.’ He was tall and broad-set with handsome dark eyes, thick eyebrows and short dark stubble.

‘We are ready,’ the woman said, wrapping a blanket round the child in the box and lifting him out. ‘Where can we go? You have another room?’

The agent shook his head. ‘No. You must go to ’parish and ask for help.’

‘Do you have work?’ Harry asked the man.

He shook his head but said nothing, and taking the baby from his wife he turned for the door. The woman ushered the older children in front of her, and Harry followed them out. He hadn’t much money, but he knew he had more than this family. He put his hand in his pocket. He’d been promised an extra shilling a week in his wages and thought the first one would be well spent if he gave it away.

‘Try for work at ’mills,’ he said, handing over a shilling. ‘In Wincomlee.’

‘Thank you. You work there?’ the man asked him, taking the money. ‘You give me job? I am good worker. Very strong. Engineer.’

Harry lifted his hands. ‘No. I came looking for work too.’ He wasn’t sure if he had been understood, but the man sighed, thanked him again and turned away.

The agent was standing with his hands in his pocket when Harry went back inside. ‘If you want this place I’ll need a shilling for ’first week’s rent and you can move in straight away,’ he said.

The two rooms had originally been one; there was a fireplace and a thin dividing wall with a doorway but no door, beyond which was a small scullery with a sink and a door leading outside. Harry looked out of the back window; he could see a small yard with a box-like structure which he thought would be the privy. ‘What’s outside of ’yard?’

The agent shrugged. ‘Just an area and ’river. Do you want it or not?’

‘Yeh!’ Harry made an instant decision. I’m not in a position to be choosy, he thought, and if the new job is all right we can look for something better when we have some money. ‘I’ll leave a shilling as a deposit and it’ll cover next week’s rent, and I’ll need a receipt. We’ll move in on Saturday.’

The agent nodded and took out a receipt book and wrote in it, asking, ‘What’s your name? Right, I’ll see you here at ten o’clock on Saturday morning, Mr Randell, to hand over ’keys. My name’s Dennison.’

‘Thanks.’ Harry handed over the shilling. ‘I’ll need a rent book with ’amount paid entered in it.’