He walked through a small woodland that he had played in as a lad and kept in good order since he started work for Ozzie, pruning trees and bushes, and cutting back brambles, nettles and thistles from the paths, but leaving some clumps and patches for the birds, bees and butterflies to feed on or collect the pollen from. He thought that on their last day he and Ellen should bring the children to the woodland. Thomas would be too young to remember, but perhaps a vestige of memory might be retained by Sarah and Mary.

‘They’ll build memories of their own,’ he said to Ellen, and she agreed that they would, but not of here, of their new home in Hull.

‘Let’s take them to look at the sea as well,’ she said, ‘for who knows when we’ll come back?’

‘But we will,’ he assured her. ‘We’ll come to visit our folks, won’t we? We shan’t desert them for ever. This’ll allus be our home.’

And so that is what they did. Friday morning was sharp and bright, the summer sun losing its heat; there was a smell of burning stubble and blackberries, sloe berries and rosehips were palely changing colour on the hedgerow, wild crab apple was dressed in wispy spiders’ webs, and everywhere shades of burnished russet brown and gold shone amongst the leaves as the trees slowly changed into their autumn robes.

Sarah and Mary danced down the woodland paths and Thomas too struggled to get down from his father’s arms to join them. He was walking well and Harry and Ellen each took a hand and he kicked out his legs and chortled at the crunching of fallen leaves.

Then, with Thomas back in Harry’s arms and Sarah and Mary holding hands, they turned towards the path that led to the cliff top, and although they were getting anxious that they still had things to pack and must say goodbye to their families, they didn’t want to miss this last walk. It was special to both of them and Harry whistled the tune of ‘The Girl With The Nut Brown Hair’ as they walked. She looked so sweet from her two bare feet to the sheen of her nut-brown hair.

‘Do you know how long I’ve loved you?’ he asked her.

She smiled. ‘Since I was fifteen.’

‘And do you know how long I will love you?’

‘For ever,’ she said, putting up her face for his kiss.

The sea lashed below the cliffs and Ellen kept tight hold of her daughters’ hands. ‘My ma said that our forebears came to Holderness from Hull,’ she told him. ‘First one to come had been a whaling man.’

‘That must have been a hard life. I wonder why he came out here,’ Harry said curiously. ‘Unless he chose Holderness so that he could still see ’ocean. They say that seafarers get salt water in their veins.’