Colour flared into Amber’s cheeks. ‘O’ course I can read,’ she answered indignantly. ‘Me mam allus made sure that we all went to school.’

‘Very well, wait there a moment then.’ Mrs Carter hurried away, returning minutes later with a roughly drawn street map. ‘Now, keep going left until you come to Albert Road, turn there and walk on . . .’ She quickly talked her way through the route and Amber smiled gratefully.

‘Thank you. I won’t be long, I hope.’

‘I assume that you’ll be staying for dinner?’

‘Er . . . hopefully,’ Amber mumbled as she bent to take the letter her mother had written from the bag.

‘Very well, I shall make sure that we lay an extra place for you at the table.’

Amber inclined her head and stepped back outside, carefully following the map that Mrs Carter had drawn for her. When she reached Hope Street, she continued along it until she came to a shopfront with a brightly coloured sign hanging above it declaring that it was Harding’s Hardware Store.

Amber was quite amazed at the size of it. It took up at least two of the average shopfronts and judging by the number of people going in and out it was doing a roaring trade. Outside on hooks in the wall were a number of buckets and bowls, and brooms of all shapes and sizes stood against the wall in a huge bin. Next to that was another bin containing every garden tool a gardener could possibly need as well as tubs full of screws and nails.

Suddenly she was nervous and as she stood there dithering, a young man, who looked to be slightly older than her, came out with a lady and helped her to choose a broom. Once the woman had chosen and gone back into the shop to pay for it, he turned to Amber and asked cheerfully, ‘Can I help you, Miss?’

He was very tall with dark hair and grey eyes and Amber liked him immediately. He was so friendly it would have been hard not to.

‘Er . . . no, you can’t. I’m here to see my uncle actually . . . Mr Harding.’

‘Oh!’ He looked surprised. ‘Well, you’ll find him inside, Miss.’

‘Thank you.’ Amber inclined her head and after taking a deep breath she entered the shop.

She saw her uncle immediately. He was standing behind the counter serving a customer so she stood back until he’d finished. He looked older than she remembered, but then it had been some years since she’d seen him. His hair was streaked with grey now but his eyes were still exactly the same colour as her mother’s and she could tell straightaway that they were related. She approached the counter cautiously and when he looked up, she said, ‘Hello, Uncle Jeremiah, I’m Amber. Your sister Alice’s daughter.’