‘No, look, sorry, I always forget how little ye know. It’s a horrible word but Audrey Parker were a spinster. Past thirty and not married. Quiet lass. She’d been away to school and not settled. Her faither was a military man, proper old-fashioned colonel-type though I don’t know if he was an actual colonel – that’s just what people called him. Was already a soldier before the first war. He bought the farm next to your place about 1910. Married a lass from Greenhead who didn’t want to move to wherever it were that he were from. Audrey came along during the war when he were off fighting. Her brother, Loveday, the year after. Aye, I see you looking! He paid the price for the name his family lumbered him with. Can’t say the local lads were too kind to him when he were home for the holidays. The colonel came home after the war to be a farmer though from what Mam told me he weren’t the same man who left. He’d gone grey and looked old and weren’t fit enough to lift a spade. It were his wife who made a go of the place and then Audrey and her brother took it on when she died. Always a bit touched by tragedy, so Mam said. Two of Audrey’s brothers didn’t see their fifth birthdays. And Loveday had an accident that took his arm at the elbow, though it didn’t stop him working like a Trojan. The colonel died not long after. Farm was doing OK and Audrey had come back from school and was happy to run the place with her mam and her brother. But brother went off to war …’

‘With one arm?’

‘Oh aye, they’ll find work for ye if ye’re willing. Well, he nivver came back. All those years studying at the posh school and at university and he goes and gets blasted to bits. Her mam died not long after and Audrey were alone with a great farm to run on her own and she were already the age I am now. We all thought she’d end up a bit dotty, all alone. That were mebbe why she wrote to all the old POWs and sent them bits and bobs when they were going through hardships. Bit of company, even if it were miles away. Then next thing she’s got herself wed. Met some Swiss man while in Ireland buying a breeding bull. Were a proper local romance. There were those who reckoned she were one of those who had no interest in marriage but it just shows what little people know. He were a gent, Mr Parker, even if he weren’t the prettiest. And it were a lovely tribute, what he did.’

‘What he did?’