He was looking forward to making a new start, he said, so I hoped this meant he was planning a new start with God. Not that I believed in God any more. How could I, when He’d taken our mother away? You could pray all you liked, but now I had proof that no one was listening. Or, if they were listening, they didn’t care. Even so, I went on pretending, so as not to upset Pa even more.

It was different for him, because believing in God was part of the job description for the clergy. During Mum’s last days I’d heard him praying out loud: ‘Oh God, why have you deserted me? Show yourself, I beg you. Hold my hand, help me through this trial.’

Pa hardly ever prayed out loud except when he was running church services, so hearing this made me shiver. But if he felt confident enough to get excited about becoming a proper vicar, then perhaps it was a good sign.

Wormley vicarage was cold, cavernous, unloved and filled with shabby, old-fashioned furniture. It was far too large for our little family. But by the time we’d packed up everything and driven the long, tedious journey from London I was so exhausted that I didn’t really care.

Downstairs there were four main rooms: two at the front overlooked the village street and across to the church. One had obviously been used by the previous occupant as a study, and was dominated by a massive mahogany desk that looked more like a ship. On the desk sat an ancient Bakelite telephone and I was about to get excited at the prospect of using it, but Mrs D told us it wasn’t connected, and somehow Pa never got round to that.

The back of the house was the sunny side, facing south over the garden and towards the woods. The kitchen had a linoleum floor, a solid-fuel range, shelves containing dusty kitchen implements and a large scrubbed-pine kitchen table. From here, a door led into a scullery with a deep square white sink and wooden draining racks and, beyond that, a useful lobby with dedicated spaces for boots and coats led out into the garden.

The dining room was the best of all, with sun pouring in through French windows into the garden, and two casement windows on either side. I suggested this would make a much brighter, warmer living room, but Pa wouldn’t hear of it. ‘I’m going to need that table for parish meetings and so on,’ he said firmly.