Under the moon, though from the same era, was a brightly coloured tin with a picture on the lid of a man in a smoking jacket holding a magic wand. Inside were three red cups, each smaller than an eggcup, and half a dozen pea-sized balls. A booklet illustrated with sketchy and perplexing diagrams explained how, by sleight of hand, the balls could be made to disappear from beneath one cup and reappear beneath another. To do this it was necessary to obtain the knack of holding a ball pressed inconspicuously into the crease of your palm. Alec tried it a few times; it was surprisingly difficult, but it was, he thought, the kind of trick that any good uncle should be able to perform, and he determined to learn it, thoroughly, and entertain Ella with it when she came over.

Other stuff: a school gazette from King Alfred’s with a grainy still of boys on sport’s day – small, ghostly figures, bizarrely intent, strung out across an enormous grey field. The finishing line, which might have given the picture some context, was out of shot, and far from being redolent of a summer’s afternoon, of youthful athleticism, the boys seemed to have been posed there to illustrate some idea of human futility. Farther on, another Xeroxed photograph showed a group of adolescents standing about with stick-on moustaches and frock-coats for a production of the school play, The Importance of Being Earnest, in which Alec had played Algy Moncrieff, ‘creditably’, according to the gazette, though all he could remember of it was the angry crimson mottle on his throat brought about by first-night nerves; the urge to bolt.

A box of Cluedo.

A card game called Pit.

A ‘spud’ gun in the style of an automatic, the spring action still functioning.

A Frank Zappa album, warped.

A hardback copy of Struwwelpeter.