‘Live in Hull! How can he do that?’ Mrs Randell seemed shocked and her voice rose. ‘He’s my onny son. I’ll be left wi’ onny my daughters.’

‘You’ve got plenty of sons-in-law, Ma,’ Meg said quietly. ‘And you’ve still got our da, don’t forget, and I expect Harry will come regularly to see you.’ Ellen glanced at Meg, whose manner remained impassive. She smiled at her mother. ‘It’ll be all right, Ma,’ she said. ‘You don’t have to worry.’

Mrs Randell was failing, Ellen realized as she walked back through the village to her own parents’ cottage. It hadn’t been apparent to her previously. Was it the shock of hearing the news of Harry’s leaving the district that had brought on her distress? But as she had left the house, Meg had murmured, ‘No need to tell Harry about Ma. He needn’t feel anxious about going; he has to earn a living and there isn’t one here. There’re plenty of us to tek it in turn to visit her, and Da is capable. He’ll tell us if she needs any extra help.’

Her own mother was more encouraging when Ellen told her about their plans. ‘We’ll miss you not popping in, and we’ll miss ’bairns as well. It’s a shame when families break up, but you have to go where ’work is. That’s ’way it is.’ She was silent for a moment, and then said, ‘Course, what you’re doing is going back to your roots. Your roots, I mean, not Harry’s. His family has allus lived in Holderness.’

‘But so has ours,’ Ellen protested. ‘Your parents were born here and I thought theirs were too.’

‘They were,’ her mother agreed, ‘but afore that our forebears lived in Hull. Whaling folk they were, and ’first to come to Holderness after an accident at sea was a man called William Foster. I don’t know how or why he upped sticks and came out into ’country, but come he did, he and his wife and bairns. Another bairn was born here, further up ’coast, out Aldbrough way, and she – Sarah, she was called – did well for herself, marrying into ’gentry, so I understand. My owd granny used to spin me tales about Sarah Foster who married a Mr Rayner and produced this big family. There were a lot of ’em, seemingly, millers and farmers, and shipowners too, and they’re still scattered throughout Holderness, though some of them lost land to ’erosion and had to move inland.’

‘Really?’ Ellen was astonished. ‘So is that why you were named Sarah? And I’ve named my Sarah after you; and then there’s Billy – he’s a William, and so is our Maria’s second child, William!’