‘When Billie first mentioned you, I couldn’t place you at all, but I do recognise your face,’ Imelda told Henry. ‘Did Billie show the photograph? Are you on it?’

Henry smiled. ‘I am, but I was just a baby. I was eighteen and had never been kissed when I started at Larkins. By the time I left nine months later I was almost a man. It was certainly an education working and living there.’

‘You lived there as well?’ Esther had always been fascinated by Imelda’s stories about the holiday park and was keen to hear more from Henry.

‘Oh, yes. Staff who didn’t live locally – and that applied to most of the entertainment staff – were offered accommodation with their jobs. Of course, our rooms were very basic, except for Marty’s which was as good as any of the holiday chalets, but then we didn’t spend much time in them. Mine was next door to your friend Cillian’s,’ he told Imelda.

Esther’s face lit up. ‘Ooh! Did you ever catch him sneaking Imelda in there?’

Imelda rapped her over the knuckles with a teaspoon and Henry laughed.

‘There wasn’t supposed to be any fraternising in the staff chalets, with guests or other members of staff.’

‘But . . .’ encouraged Esther.

‘But rules are made to be broken,’ Henry conceded. ‘And, of course, they were.’

Imelda offered Mabel a small piece of cake. ‘Did you know Cillian well?’

‘Not really. We’d say hello in passing and I’d occasionally see him in the bar. The entertainment staff never had much free time. The Wall of Death shows were in the afternoon and early evening and I was generally working from noon to midnight. I used to play piano for Jeanie Rogers, the singer, most evenings.’

Imelda looked puzzled. ‘But Jeanie’s accompanist was a young man called Charlie Martin. He left to go and work in a club in London, and if I remember rightly, he got Jeanie a job there too eventually.’

‘That’s why you couldn’t place me! I’m him. He’s me. We’re one and the same. Charlie Martin was my stage name. I hated Henry back then. It sounded like an old man. Charles was my middle name, so I became Charlie. Like Chaplin.’

‘And the perfume,’ offered Esther. ‘I remember that so well. I used to drench myself with the stuff.’

‘But you’re Henry Hayward, now?’ Imelda was determined to get things straight.

‘I took Jocelyn’s name when we married. I liked the alliteration.’

Esther was keen to return to the more salacious gossip.

‘So, did you ever sneak anyone back to your chalet?’ she asked Henry.

‘Now, that would be telling. I was quite the innocent back then, but I do remember that things got very rowdy once the management started allowing young single guests to stay. Saturday nights became like an everlasting happy hour in Sodom and Gomorrah.’