He didn’t stop to answer. ‘Don’t spend too much time with other people,’ is the advice he gives to young boys in the final chapter of his guide to Health and Confidence. ‘Because that’s when you are most likely to lose control.’ And besides, the healthful rays of the sun, the life-giving properties of the water, were beckoning. ‘You’ve already asked me that,’ he called back over his shoulder. ‘You shouldn’t keep repeating yourself.’

As if that wasn’t enough to undo all the good work I’d put in on myself on the cliffs this morning, I no sooner got on to flat land and into the harbour approaches than I walked straight into Harry Vilbert, lounging against the wall of the Off Wessex Museum of Nugatory Spells and Superstitions. Harry too, as a testimony to my improved appearance, chose today to break our tacit vow of silence. He extended to me with difficulty a hand weighed down with copper bracelets – as he gets closer to sixty his battle against rheumatism and arthritis is hotting up – and when I offered him mine he slapped it as though we were a pair of black brothers meeting in the streets of Harlem. Only it wasn’t the excitement of the city and our natural volatility that united us, it was Castle Boterel and melancholy. ‘I know what you’re going through,’ it had been killing him not to say to me all these months. ‘I’m going through it too.’