‘That was the olden days, Mum,’ Adam said. ‘Everything’s different now. Nobody wants another war, do they? Stop worrying.’

He went to Syros, on a quest to find his father. So, it came about that I learned of Manno’s death from our son. This was a dark time for me. The local people told Adam, Manno had pulled up a mine in his fishing net. The explosion killed him and his father.

Adam was working on a Greek bridge between the mainland and the island of Evia, the second-largest island in Greece. While there, he caught the ferry to Kea to visit his father’s grave. He fell in love with a Greek girl, Anna, and in 1943 she came to England where they married. This was a time of joy.

Anna gave birth to Margarete in 1951. Unfortunately Anna became ill and died shortly after. I brought up Margarete, as my own. Not a difficult task as I loved her intensely, and still do.

At that same time, in 1951, Greece joined NATO and there were Greek elections. Adam went out with the army to support the new regime in what had become a very troubled country. Naturally, he went to Syros to see Anna’s family. They took Anna’s death badly. Adam was broken-hearted. He wrote to me from Greece and said he had a small job to do on Kea, then he was returning to his battalion, but I never heard from him again.

This, I knew, was all punishment for my wrongdoing. I had sworn to atone for my sins on the day the Britannic went down. How could I have foreseen this cruel twist, my son Adam being taken from me was the worst penance, but I had to bear it. I kept my pain inside, where it belonged, and when your mother grew, and married, I prayed God had forgiven me, and nothing else would happen to those I loved. To lose Adam, with no closure, no grave to weep over, was the worst punishment of all.

Eventually, Adam was listed as missing in action. Like any mother, this broke my heart. I refused to believe my beautiful son was dead. To tell you the truth, I still can’t believe it. I tried to find out what happened, but to no avail. I had saved a little each year, always planning to go back to Kea or Syros. In the end, I managed to get to Kea in the Sixties. Time had passed, and people’s memories are short. There were vague references to an English working on the island, but names were forgotten.

I visited Manno’s grave, and wept the afternoon away. I had loved that man with all my heart.