‘Still the same,’ I reply. I wish he could see it; it breaks my heart that he can’t. I haven’t been here for years; I’d forgotten what a delightful surprise it is when it comes into your sights as you walk along Prince Consort Road, a terracotta confection rising to the sky. How it takes your breath away. We came here to perform in a school choir concert, Angela and I, not long before Dad went blind. We sang songs from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat in the auditorium, to an audience of adoring parents, and then afterwards Dad bought us a choc ice from one of the little bars and we came and stood outside with them, our backs against the brickwork, while Dad told us all about Prince Albert and the design of the Hall.

Today Dad and I climb the wide steps in front of the building then follow its curve to the right, along the lowest tier of this majestic layer cake, where the brickwork is creamy and embossed with heraldic shields. The sun has warmed the bricks to warm biscuits and Dad stops and places his hands on one like it’s a talisman.

‘I haven’t been here since you girls were in that concert,’ he says. ‘It’s been a long time.’ Almost talking to himself, he adds, ‘The Albert Hall was designed by two architects in the Royal Engineers and opened by Queen Victoria in 1871. It wasn’t called the Albert Hall until after Albert died; it used to be called the Hall of Arts and Sciences.’ They’re probably the same facts he told me and Angela all those years ago. I wonder if we’re standing in the same spot. ‘The design was partly based on the Colosseum in Rome. The original dome was made in Manchester before being taken apart and transported to London.’

‘It’s so beautiful,’ I say. ‘I love the shape of it.’

‘Its shape probably saved it from being bombed in the Second World War, you know. The German pilots used it as a landmark. Did you know it’s oval, not circular?’

‘No, I didn’t know that.’ Dad looks melancholic, with his hand on the warmth of the Albert Hall. I wish I could reach him, reach out to him, but I still don’t know where to start.

We walk all the way around. Dad asks me to describe the building how I see it, so I talk about the gateau, the layers, the pinks and the plums. For the first time I notice the mosaic frieze that ribbons all the way around it, and Dad tells me it’s called the Triumph of Art and Letters and what each panel of the mosaic depicts.

‘Do you want to go inside?’ I ask him, once we have done the full circumference.

‘No, I don’t think so. Let’s head home now, Prue.’