‘Doesn’t the spread on the table look lovely?’ was Ann’s way of interceding. ‘But when didn’t it at a Brith in our family?’ she added reminiscently.

Marianne recognized one of Ann’s fruitcakes, and a fancy gateau that had to have been made by Shirley. The Victoria sponge was Lyn’s speciality. And the Viennese Sachertorte Leona’s, from a recipe handed down by Frank’s aunts.

The dish of chopped herring was Marianne’s contribution – nobody would be surprised to know it wasn’t homemade! Laura, not yet out of hospital, had asked Jake to supply some smoked salmon on her behalf.

My grandmother used to say that food is Jewish comfort, Marianne recalled with a smile. In times of sadness Sarah Sandberg had put a meal on the table and instructed her family to eat.

Today’s occasion, though, was joyous, and the baby’s paternal grandparents, Ronald and Diane, had flown from New York to be present, both looking as if the change they had wrought in their lives agreed with them.

On the table, too, was a platter of the little sesame seed cakes that featured in the Sephardi cuisine to which Diane had introduced her Ashkenazi in-laws in the days when it was an uncommon occurrence among Manchester Jewry for those of the two very different cultures to intermarry.

Marianne’s mind travelled back to Ronald and Diane’s engagement party, held in the near-mansion her father’s wealth had acquired when the Sandbergs were still struggling their way upward. In the main, Jews of Spanish and Portuguese descent had arrived in Britain with money to help them on their way – and those of us, like me, she thought, whose family background included early-immigrant privation, used to look on them as snobs. Their settling on the leafy, south side of the city, and us on the north, had lent credence to that impression, and their calling the place where they met to play bridge and tennis ‘The Country Club’ hadn’t helped! The club was still there.

How many years did it take for what was once in effect two communities to become one? Marianne was musing when Diane said with a laugh that she had almost left the sesame seed cakes baked in New York on the plane, such was her excitement at the prospect of seeing her baby grandson.

‘It was lovely of you to think of making them for the Brith,’ Carla told her.

Diane, whose suit looked as if it came from Fifth Avenue, said quietly, ‘The credit, though it was I who made them, must go to your father-in-law. It was Ronald who reminded me of the family custom, that the women each contribute something to the spread.’