When the letter came telling Rosie that Mary Vale House had a place for her and her children, she told Ronnie to pack a case, while with Sally’s help she had unearthed a tin at the back of the kitchen cupboard in which she had squirrelled away her paltry savings. Leaving Ron to carry the cheap cardboard suitcase, Sally helped her mum on to the tram for Euston Station, where they took a steam train (packed with soldiers chain-smoking in the crowded corridors) north to Lancaster. Leaving their mum slumped in the corner of a carriage fast asleep, Ron and Sally ran up and down the train, cadging anything they could – a sandwich, a bit of cake, a boiled sweet, a drink of tea, before they too fell fast asleep beside their exhausted mother.

When the steam train clanked to a halt in Carnforth, Rosie, Ronnie and Sally caught the little local line that dropped them off at Kents Bank, from where, many, many hours after they had left Finsbury Park, they walked to Mary Vale House in the dark. Luckily the light from the half-moon guided their way through the wood and along the path to the front door of the Home, which was as usual opened by Sister Mary Paul. Even though she was expecting the new arrivals, the nun’s jaw dropped at the sight of the rag-and-bone family standing on the doorstep. The mother looked like a corpse propped up between her two filthy children, who stared at her with wide open, frightened eyes.

‘We’ve brought our mum here to ’ave a baby,’ Ron announced. ‘Can we have sumfink to eat, we’re bloody starved!’

Sister Mary Paul didn’t dare take Rosie and her family into the sitting room for fear of passing other residents who might be shocked at the sight of them. Instead she whooshed them upstairs to their large, airy, spotlessly clean bedroom laid out with three single beds, a wardrobe, a chest of drawers and a rickety table with three small spindle-backed chairs. When Rosie saw the clean sheets and cosy eiderdowns that covered the beds, she started to cry.

‘Rest now, dear,’ Sister Mary Paul urged, as she settled the weeping woman on to the most comfortable bed by the large bay window, which she quickly opened to let in some fresh air. Leaving Rosie and Ron bouncing on the beds like cheeky monkeys, Sister Mary Paul scooted downstairs as fast as her feet would carry her and all but ran in search of Ada.