As I ironed, I listened to the ladies’ conversations – they were always enlightening. By the end of a session I would have caught up with the news of so-and-so’s recovery from an operation for unexplained ‘women’s troubles’, and the fate of another beleaguered soul whose husband apparently disappeared for days at a time. ‘He’s home again,’ they’d say, shaking their heads. ‘Though why she do take him back every time’s a mystery, for sure.’

That day, over the chatter of the other volunteers, I heard the familiar squeak of the church-door hinges and assumed it was another volunteer arriving, until that familiar voice boomed out.

‘Good morning, ladies. Hope you don’t mind if we come in to take a gander at this church window? We won’t get in the way of your work, I promise.’

Hidden from the visitors, the ladies with me in the vestry left off their mending and lifted their heads to listen.

‘That’ll be that nice Mr Blackman, I’ll be bound,’ one of them whispered.

‘Ain’t his wife a beauty?’ said the other. ‘The new one, I mean.’

‘New wife?’ I asked. ‘What happened to the old one?’

‘No one knows exactly. Swapped for a younger version, they say. All happened afore they come here.’

‘How long have they been here then?’

‘Ooh, just a few years – six or seven mebbe?’

‘They do good things for the village, them two. Old Joe works for ’im, as well as Mrs Tebbutt, you know.’

‘There’s bin talk about them up at the big house paying for a new stained glass.’

‘Mrs Blackman’s an artist,’ was the reply. ‘She’s offered to design it.’

‘Well, ain’t that a nice thing to do?’

The sour smell of scorched cotton reached my nostrils. I jerked up the iron, but it was too late. The cover of the ironing board was stained with a pale-brown mark. I sent up a small prayer of thanks that it was not the surplice itself that I’d ruined.

The plan for the new window moved quickly. Pa was keen to spread the good news in the first-ever edition of the revived parish newsletter, grandly titled The Wormley Village News. The copy was all written, he said, but Miss Calver needed help with the printing, so I gladly offered, so long as Mrs D could look after Jimmy for the morning.