‘I didn’t make it, did I?’ Dulcie said gloomily. ‘I failed PTS and had to do it all again.’

‘At least you came back,’ Grace said.

‘I was ready to go home that first day,’ Anna remembered. ‘I sat in my room at Porthleven House that first day and cried my eyes out. I think I would have run away if Sedgewick hadn’t knocked on my door and asked to borrow a hairpin.’

‘I’ll let you into a little secret, shall I?’ Sadie grinned. ‘I heard you crying through the wall so I thought I’d better do something.’

‘You didn’t?’ Anna stared at her friend’s laughing face. ‘I didn’t know anyone heard me.’

‘Blimey, girl, you were sobbing so loud I’m amazed they didn’t hear you in the main hospital building!’ Sadie grinned. She looked like a doll, with her honey-gold hair and wide green eyes. Until she opened her mouth. Her rough East End accent had only broadened since she had started district nursing on the streets of Bethnal Green.

Anna saw Miriam’s mouth purse fastidiously. She and Sadie had clashed endlessly during their training – mainly due to jealousy on Miriam’s part, she thought.

‘Thank you for rescuing me, anyway,’ she said to Sadie.

‘Don’t mention it, mate. That’s what friends are for, ain’t it?’

Anna gazed around the table. These girls truly were her friends, she thought. Or perhaps sisters would be a better description. They had not chosen each other, but fate had thrown them together in the same set, and they had become like an odd little family.

And God knows, they had fought like sisters sometimes. They bickered, and fell out, and said petty, spiteful things to each other. Anna could remember times when she could have cheerfully wrung their necks. But like sisters they had stuck together, defended and consoled each other.

It gave her a physical pain to think how much she would miss them.

‘Who’d have thought we’d still be here, three years later?’ she said out loud.

‘Not me!’ Dulcie grimaced.

‘No, you thought you’d be married to a doctor by now.’ Miriam gave her a malicious little smile.

‘So did you,’ Dulcie shot back.

‘Hark at them,’ Sadie said. ‘Some things never change, do they? They were pecking at each other on that very first day, as I recall.’ She winked at Anna. ‘Bet you won’t miss all the arguments, will you?’

Anna smiled. ‘Actually, I think I will.’

‘Get on with you! You’ll be too busy with that handsome husband of yours to give us lot a second thought.’

She was right, Anna thought. She had been so caught up thinking about what she was losing, she hadn’t really stopped to think about what she would gain.

Edward had certainly been a lot happier since Anna agreed to give up nursing and return to the bakery full-time. And he had been overjoyed when Mrs Church had left a few days earlier.

Anna still cringed to think about her last conversation with her. She had tried to be kind about it, but Ida Church took it very badly indeed.