Despite it being two days before Winter officially began, most people had already hunkered down, and anyone who wasn’t yet asleep would be going through their pre-hibernatory nesting rituals. Yoga and Gregorian chants were always popular, with yoyo, tango, humming, bezique and watercolouring going in and out of favour as the vagaries of fashion saw fit. But for most people it was a simple slowing of activity, purposefully avoiding anything exciting. This was a winding down, a relaxing of mind and spirit.

To assist initial descent and a free return in case of an accidental awakening, the networks ran looped repeats of Bonanza throughout the Winter. Residents with Random Waking Syndrome kept a TV switched on at the foot of their bed, sound turned down low, the picture dimmed.

‘It’s only dull by endless repetition,’ Logan had explained earlier, while we discussed strategies to ease anomalous wakers back to sleep, ‘and the close familiarity of the characters and situations make for an often transcendental drifting of the mind.’

No one quite knew why Bonanza had become the TV series of choice for the Winter, but the more it was watched, the more suited to easement it became. If the machinations of the Cartwright family didn’t work, you could always watch reruns of Crossroads or resort to the default entry-level route to welcome catatonia: Ulysses, Moby Dick or War and Peace.

I halted the Sno-Trac outside the Beryl Cook Dormitorium, the largest of twenty-seven Kipshops on the seafront at Penarth. I made sure the compressed air tank was in the green so I could effect a restart, then stopped the engine and climbed out of the rear door. The recent fall of snow had partially melted in the morning sun then refrozen, and the ground felt like Rice Krispies beneath our boots.

‘We’ve got the control rods fully in and the core temperature is still wavering on the red,’ said the porter in an oddly enthusiastic way, as though a reactor fire would be a welcome diversion from the Winter boredom. He beckoned us in to the small control room just behind the reception and we all stared at the core temperature dial, which was indeed wavering on the danger level.

The heat sources that kept Dormitoria at Low Ideal throughout the Winter were now Uranium Reactor Piles rather than the sometimes erratic and unreliable ‘GlowPits’ of layered peat, pitchblende, coal and hardwood. By contrast, the uranium/graphite ‘HotPots’ were efficient and generally maintenance free, but could sometimes – very rarely, it was often stressed by Albion Nuclear – be temperamental in a dramatically showy kind of way.

‘I can’t go into the Winter with a potential reactor overheat and auto-shutdown on my hands,’ said the porter. ‘Who’s going to pay for the rehoming if the Beryl goes dark midwinter? Not me.’

I looked down at the floor with, I think, a sense of mild concern.