Young Cliff continued at school when Florence went to England. He had full use of the Bechstein in the drawing-room during the holidays. She returned to find him a big boy but otherwise, it seemed, still docile under her patronage. But when he came home for his summer holidays at the end of 1941, he was changed, not, Ursula said emphatically, for the better. He had had trouble with his eyes and the school oculist had told him that he would never be accepted for active service. He had immediately broken bounds and attempted to enlist. On being turned down he wrote to Florence saying that he wanted to leave school and, if possible, do a job of war work on the sheeprun until he was old enough to get into the army, if only in a C3 capacity. He was now sixteen. This letter was a bombshell for Flossie. She planned a university career, followed, if the war ended soon enough, by a move to London and the Royal College of Music. She went to the manager’s cottage with the letter in her hand, only to find that Tommy Johns, also, had heard from his son and was delighted. ‘We’re going to need good men on the land as we’ve never needed them before, Mrs Rubrick. I’m very very pleased young Cliff looks at it that way. If you’ll excuse me for saying so, I thought this posh education he’s been getting would make a class-conscious snob of the boy but from what he tells me of his ideas I see it’s worked out different.’ For young Cliff, it appeared, was now a communist. Nothing could have been further removed from Flossie’s plans.

When he appeared, she could make no impression on him. He seemed to think that she alone would sympathize with his change of heart and plans and would support him. He couldn’t understand her disappointment nor, as he continued in his attitude, her mounting anger. He grew dogmatic and stubborn. The woman of forty-seven and the boy of sixteen quarrelled bitterly and strangely. It was a cruel thing for him to do, Ursula said, cruel and stupid. Aunt Florence was the most patriotic soul alive. Look at her war work. It wasn’t as though he was old enough or fit for the army. The least he could do was to complete the education she had so generously planned and in part given him.