‘Do you have any yogurt and honey?’ Nell asked the waiter, and tried to hide her disappointment when he brought not the delicious home-made Greek yogurt they remembered with a pot of honey and wooden swizzle stick to serve yourself, but the kind of pre-mixed carton you could buy in Tesco.

‘Look,’ she suddenly remembered. ‘See what I found in my impenetrable filing system.’ She held out a photograph of them all at eighteen, on the beach where they’d slept for a week.

Penny, tall and flaxen-haired, smiled out shyly from the picture, her skin reddened from the sun. ‘Oh God, look at me, I always go the colour of a ripe tomato!’

Moira wore an embroidered peasant top with blue jeans; Nell was in the famous Bedouin wedding dress. ‘They must have thought I was completely barmy!’ she laughed. Finally there was Dora, in a tiny miniskirt and camisole top. ‘I’m surprised you didn’t get arrested,’ Nell laughed.

‘Or cause a riot!’ Moira seconded.

‘I do remember being followed by some old guy who kept jabbering on about free love. I told him he could pay like everyone else, but fortunately he didn’t speak English and had no idea what I was saying.’

‘I remember trying to communicate with my kalimeras and kalisperas,’ Penny laughed. ‘Not like now, when everyone speaks English.’ They finished off their coffees. ‘Right,’ Nell announced, ‘to the beach!’

There was only one way to the sea and they picked their way down the narrow path, laughing and teasing each other, realizing with relief that by bringing back the past they had started to enjoy the present.

At the bottom of the street they stood and looked around, stunned. Their little beach with its tatty cafe was now a St Tropez-style enclosure with row after row of spanking new sunbeds and colourful striped umbrellas. Instead of the wooden cabana cafe, there was a large glass-enclosed restaurant.

‘Bloody hell!’ Moira squawked. ‘Twenty euro for a sunbed and umbrella! We didn’t have that much to spend in a week!’

‘Come on, we deserve it,’ Dora decreed. ‘It’s only early and we can stay all day.’

They all plonked their bags down on their chosen sunbeds – except for Moira, who, as a point of principle, insisted on putting her towel down on the sand.

A sleek middle-aged man in chinos and a white t-shirt approached them for payment. Nell had a sudden brainwave. ‘Hello, aren’t you Yorgos? I remember you when you were about six!’

Yorgos stared round the group. ‘Po po po!’ he exclaimed. ‘You are the English girls! We never forget you here! You came early to Zanthos, long before all this!’ He gestured round to the smart surroundings. ‘When my mum cook on an oil barrel and my dad have only old – what is English word – deck chairs on the beach!’