‘Don’t get lost now, girls,’ Alec said. ‘I’d have one heck of a job finding you again in this throng.’ With his pipe jutting from the side of his mouth he took our hands and I felt the smallness of my hand in his huge palm. I was almost bursting with pride. As we walked along he smiled and raised his hat to people, took his pipe out of his mouth, loosing us each time and then reaching for our hands again. The smell of his tobacco smoke wafted down to us. I looked up at the tall, athletic figure beside me. I saw women of all ages blushing as he smiled and spoke to them.

One young woman approached him, smiled coyly and said, ‘Aft’noon, Mr Kemp.’ And Alec replied, ‘Good day, Violet.’ She walked away giggling with her friend, casting backward glances over her shoulder.

‘How does she know you?’ Olivia asked.

‘She’s from the works,’ he told her.

Alec Kemp was one of Birmingham’s darlings. Born and educated in the city, he had won his way to grammar school and become a self-made man without ever leaving the place. He had taken over his father’s mediocre firm and used it to prove himself. Kemp’s was squeezed into a plot of land behind Birch Street, near the heart of Birmingham, round which were crushed streets of grimy dwellings, and tiny workshops and chimneys pouring out black smoke into the already speckled air. But Alec’s reward for economic prowess had been to move from the terrace in Sparkhill where he grew up, to one of the huge, ornate houses gracing the streets of middle-class Moseley. And this was considered quite fitting for a young, successful man so obviously destined to become one of the city’s aldermen, and particularly one who had taken the condition of the city’s housing so much to heart. He had already completed a successful campaign to demolish one of the decaying blocks of Victorian slums in the Birch Street area and build innovatory flats to house the occupants. His campaign slogan was ‘Prosperity and Responsibility’.

And it’s Livy and me who are with him, I thought. No one else. I felt more presentable than usual, wearing that frock instead of the cut-down pair of William’s shorts that Mummy so often dressed me in. If only I didn’t have to wear my ugly specs . . .

Alec treated us to everything that afternoon. ‘Here, you’d love a go on this,’ and ‘Come on girls, I remember this one from when I was a kid.’ He lengthened his stride towards the biggest merry-go-round with the horses gliding up and down so high above us, its banner reading ‘Rides for Young and Old’.

‘I wish Daddy was like your father,’ I said excitedly to Olivia. ‘He’d never spend money on things like this.’

Olivia grinned mischievously. ‘He’s all work, work, work. That’s no fun, is it?’

My father was forever working, busy with his patients or in the study. Reading, writing: Christian ethics, papers on improving the health of the nation. His work as a doctor and his Christian Socialist principles didn’t leave him much time for leisure. Quite unlike this glamorous, thrilling, all-providing Father Christmas who was Olivia’s father. No wonder Elizabeth Kemp adored him so. How could you not envy her, being married to such a man? Largesse flowed from his fingers, pouring out over the whole city.