Even the air is different, he notes. It is light, pure, trailing scents of flowers and grass rather than the smog and miasma of poverty that his lungs have become hardened to over the years. The scream of factory whistles has been replaced with trilling bird song, while the lowing of cows in the meadow supplants the bellow of a ship’s horn. The unaffected sounds serve to lift his leaden spirits as he tramps on.

Before long, his hunger begins to bite. He swings the knapsack off his shoulder and places it on the road before him so he can rifle through its meagre contents – a change of shirt, folded trousers, spare socks and pants. More precious is his leather roll of woodworking tools, his collection of fine chisels and bevelled gouges. In truth, it was the first thing he grabbed; the only item he could not leave behind.

Tucked into the bottom corner, he finds the apple he purloined from the basin on the drainer as he fled through the back door. He puts the knapsack back together and rises from his haunches before shouldering it once again. As he starts to walk, he sinks his teeth into the apple’s crisp flesh. His mouth fizzes under its sting – a cooking apple, he realises immediately. Its sourness makes him flinch, but he is parched and therefore grateful for its harsh juice. He eats it down to the core.

He has no idea where he is or where he is going. He left his home with no other thought than to run – to flee while he still could. It seemed a good enough plan at the time. As he draws in a deep lungful of air, he reminds himself it is still a good plan. He knows all too well what would have happened if he had stayed; what would happen if he ever went back.

He finds himself on the outskirts of a village almost before he realises it. The fields give way to banked verdant verges bearing a plumage of bracken and topped with trees. Through laden canopies that whisper at his arrival, he spies glimpses of red brick and grey flint. The lane he is on tunnels downwards and, as he rounds the corner, the village blooms before him, houses spreading down into the broad-bottomed valley before rising up to populate the foothills in the distance. His pulse quickens.

It is still early and for the most part all is quiet. An upstairs window in a quaint terraced row rises on its sash as he walks past. The noise catches his attention and he notices a shadow fall back from the windowpane. Somewhere, a dog begins to bark, another soon joining it. He shifts his knapsack to his other shoulder and walks on, ignoring the grit biting through the worn soles of his boots.