‘Dun’t mean she’s got to be idle,’ her mother muttered but as Jonathan opened his mouth to speak again, she put up her hand palm outwards. ‘All right, all right, we’ll do as you say.’

And now there was only an hour left before they must leave.

Kate turned and left the parlour and walked back through the narrow hallway, the stairs leading up on her left, and to her right was the front door which opened out on to the garden. Then she passed through the living room, pausing only to glance round, just looking at all the familiar things as if for the last time. The furniture was old-fashioned but everything was polished and sparkling. A red chenille cloth covered the table and red velvet curtains hung at the window. On the mantelpiece brass ornaments shone and twinkled. Slowly she came to the kitchen.

Huge hams from the last time they had killed a pig hung from hooks in the ceiling and to her left was the door leading down two steps into the pantry where all the dairy work and the butter-making was carried out. In the centre stood a plain, scrubbed table and on the far wall was the huge range, the centre of the home almost, Kate thought. It heated the water, boiled and cooked all their food, and its fire warmed them on cold winter days and nights. They even bathed in turn in front of it every Friday night in the tin bath that hung on a peg in the wash-house.

Her mother had let down the clothes airer on the rope from the ceiling and Kate paused a moment to watch her hanging freshly ironed clothes over the wooden slats.

Kate moved on out of the kitchen and through the back scullery. She opened the back door and stepped into the yard.

Her mother’s voice followed her. ‘Dun’t you go getting ya new uniform messed up.’

‘No, Mam,’ came the automatic reply.

It was a soft, September morning when the heat of the summer was gone and there was a freshness in the air. Kate lifted her head and breathed in all the smells of the farmyard, the scents of home. The cows, the horses, even the pigs and always the breeze carried a hint of the sea as a background perfume.

‘Goodbye, Boxer, goodbye, Bonnie.’ She patted each of the heavy horses in turn and they nudged at her shoulder over the half-door of their stable. ‘I ain’t no sugar,’ she apologized and added ruefully, ‘Not in this stupid dress, I ain’t.’