I addressed the envelope to Kit Waddington, c/o Wormley Hall, and wrote ‘PLEASE FORWARD’ in capital letters at the top, hoping it might somehow reach him. And then I waited.

Every other Saturday morning Jimmy and I went to the church with Mrs Diamond and her rota of other ladies to help prepare for Sunday services. They were a kind lot, and this was the one place, I’d discovered, where Jimmy could be sure of being fully accepted. He was allowed to help with the sweeping and dusting, and they put him in charge of retrieving the prayer books from their cupboard and stacking them on the table by the door in piles of ten – the most he could count up to – ready to hand out as the congregation arrived the following day. It made him feel useful and important.

It wasn’t expected of us, but it was what Mum always used to do. ‘Those volunteers give their time so cheerfully, and with such love and dedication,’ she’d say when she returned home from her weekly stint, dark hair glistening with cobwebs. ‘They’re the true heart of the church, to be honest, and the least I can do is turn up once in a while and lend a hand. It boosts morale no end, and does wonders for your father’s reputation.’

That Saturday I was in the vestry, ironing the cotton surplices that we wore in the church choir. The ladies had learned to trust me, and it became my regular job. I found it quite satisfying, seeing that row of beautifully starched and ironed surplices hanging up at the end of the morning, ready for us to wear the following day.

I’d come to enjoy the weekly ritual of dressing up, filing into our places in the choir stalls and singing as lustily as possible. I knew all the tunes already, of course, which was just as well, because the rows of what looked like black tadpoles leaping about on the staves meant nothing to me. But that didn’t seem to matter, because we didn’t sing any fancy anthems like the choir at St Martin’s. Here, our main purpose was to support the congregation through the hymns.

‘We need to give worshippers the courage to praise the Lord with their singing,’ Mrs Timpson would say at our rehearsals, urging us to sing out. Certainly, without us, the hymns would have been a feeble affair, several beats behind the organ and at least a tone flat.