Also, in the corner of the room was the bane of Mrs Trott’s life: namely, a shiny black tortoise stove – a cylindrical black monster resembling a cast-iron post box and so named because of its output of ‘slow but sure’ heat. Installed in 1910, it was beginning to show its age and John hoped the Ragley caretaker would be able to coax it back into life when the cold months began.

However, on this sunny September morning all seemed well and he pondered on the new colleague who had arrived to share his professional life. The letter from her previous headteacher in Buckinghamshire spoke of a dedicated and hard-working member of staff. She was disappointed that Lily had left with her family to live in Yorkshire, but their loss was Ragley’s gain.

John Pruett smiled to himself. It had been an excellent appointment. Miss Briggs was just what the village needed – a young woman with new ideas who would help with the school’s growing numbers. After the war the council estate had expanded. Soldiers had returned to their previous jobs and married their girlfriends. In consequence, there had been a boom in the birth rate. In fact, ten more five-year-olds had enrolled last year, hence the advertisement for a new full-time teacher. His previous assistant teacher, Miss Valerie Flint, who firmly believed that children should be seen and not heard, did not want a full-time commitment. She had taken up a new part-time teaching post in the neighbouring market town of Easington.

‘Very well, children,’ he said, ‘all together now: one seven is seven, two sevens are fourteen …’

At morning playtime Lily leaned against the school wall and watched the children playing. There had once been metal railings on top of the wall, but these had been removed during the war to build Spitfires and support the war effort, so now only their stunted stubs protruded. There was talk of replacement railings but the funds had yet to be found.

A group of girls were chanting out a popular skipping rhyme:

Red, white and blue,

The Queen’s got the flu,

The King’s got the tummy ache,

And don’t know what to do.

Two ten-year-olds, Winnie Pickles and Edie Stubbs, were winding an old washing line while nine-year-old Celia Etheringshaw jumped nimbly in and out. Lily marvelled at her agility and skill.

Eddie Brown looked on. He was known as ‘Fat Eddie’ to the other children, as he was the only overweight pupil in the school. Unlike Eddie, all the other boys and girls were whippet-thin owing to huge amounts of exercise and a limited, sugar-free diet. In complete contrast, Eddie was a sedentary boy and fed by his mother on a regular supply of sticky buns.