Once fresh tea had been made by Sister Mary Paul, Ada received a gift from the residents, a tiny creamy-white wool layette, which one of the girls had knitted herself.

‘Thank you,’ she said with genuine pleasure. ‘It’s perfect, just what I need, seeing as I’m such a poor knitter myself,’ she joked.

‘We’ll miss you, Sister,’ a young girl chirped up.

‘As I keep saying, you’ll see me around,’ Ada assured her patients. ‘I’ll continue with my breathing and relaxation classes as long as possible, so no excuses for giving up, ladies,’ she teased. ‘And I might well meet a few of you on the ante- and post-natal wards,’ she added with a warm smile. ‘Look after Matron and Dora for me and of course Nurse Mann.’

After Ada’s rather anti-climactic farewell tea, Sybil slipped out of the room, but, as she headed upstairs, she caught sight of cheeky Ronnie imitating her proud walk, while swinging an imaginary handbag. Livid at the child’s relentless rudeness and his sister’s sniggering laughter, Sybil gritted her teeth; what they were both short of was a firm hand, which the Grange school certainly administered, but once back at Mary Vale the pair of them returned to their wild feral ways.

‘Life here is no picnic,’ Sybil thought as she entered the privacy of her bedroom. ‘But those wretched little hooligans don’t make it any easier.’ With a malicious glint in her eye she had a sudden thought. ‘There must be a way to get rid of them? God!’ she exclaimed. ‘How much better this place would be without them.’

15. Ada’s Nest