Daisy Bell turned left and the Anchor loomed before them. ‘Well done, girl,’ Eric said, and her ears flicked forward as she recognised the affection in his voice. The public house was their next-to-last call on the Dock Road; the round ended at the top of the dockers’ steps which led down to the Mersey and delivered to every house and business on the way. Eric enjoyed the meticulous order of the round which played well to his military training. Every day was the same. Same orders, same numbers of bottles out and empties back in and he was about to deliver a crate of six steri to the Anchor. There was no sign of the cellar man but Eric could tell by the bottles stacked outside the back door that the previous evening had been a lock-in.

As the float trundled across the cobbled yard, Babs threw open the door and greeted them with a wave. Her usual beehive hair style was tied up in a headscarf which resembled a turban, and the remnants of the previous night’s eye make-up was smeared under her eyes.

‘Busy night was it, Babs?’ Eric asked as he inclined his head towards the bottles.

‘The usual, Eric. You know what they’re like around here. Complain they’ve got no money and just as soon as they have a quid in their pockets, they spend it in here and either throw it up down our jacksies or piss it up the wall on the way home. Don’t ever ask me why I’m still married. If I had just spent a week in this place first, it would have been enough to put me off for life. Men!’

Eric shook his head; he often thought people must wonder why he was married, given that everyone knew and avoided his wife Gladys. ‘It’s a mystery to me, Babs. I don’t know where they get the money from. Only half of the men in the pen were taken on every morning last week, so I’ve heard.’