The stairs turned at a half-landing, with a tall window overlooking the front path, useful for checking who might be coming to the door. My bedroom had twin beds, a chest with wonky drawers, a tall wardrobe and, best of all, a personal washbasin. In the wardrobe I found a box of old paperbacks, mostly trashy romances with titles like Stolen Love and Together Again and covers showing doe-eyed women in various states of dishevelment gazing longingly into the distance, hoping for their lover to return. Their spines were broken, their pages yellowing with age, but I took them out and arranged them along a shelf, like a proper library.

Then I sat at the small writing desk in front of the window and peered out through dusty panes at the green swathe of unkempt lawn and the bare black branches of the trees beyond.

At last I had my own private space, with a bolt on the door. This was where I planned to write, to imagine other people and other worlds; it was the start of my new life as a soon-to-be famous novelist and poet, so I imagined. My notebook and pens were laid out ready to go. All I needed now was the inspiration, and I felt sure my new life in the village would provide it.

Mrs Diamond lived up to her name, although it took all of us a couple of weeks to get used to the idea of someone else running the house. I was afraid she might look too much like Mum, but happily she could not have been more different: a tall, rangy woman of about fifty with dark, thinning hair tied back in a severe bun, and a serious expression that only occasionally cracked into a smile, all the more rewarding for its rarity.

She would arrive just after breakfast and whip like a whirlwind throughout the house with her carpet cleaner, duster and polish, before settling into the kitchen to cook up a daily banquet of good, plain food. We had all become resigned to the continuing rationing of meat, butter and sugar. But out here in the country there were always a few ‘little extras’ to be had: eggs often, jars of honey, sometimes cheese and even the occasional whole chicken, delivered complete with head, legs and feathers. Happily, Mrs D knew exactly how to prepare it. We were all very grateful to be eating properly again.

She showed me how to riddle and refill the coke-fuelled Rayburn that provided the house with an unreliable and barely adequate supply of hot water. It had an array of hobs and ovens of different temperatures for cooking, although we never really got the hang of it and when she wasn’t there we tended to use an ancient electric ring instead.