Sarge appeared first, his tail wagging like a flag in a stiff breeze. He didn’t bark any more. We were old friends now. His master followed close behind, and Jimmy ran forward to greet him. If he’d had a tail, he would have been wagging it as furiously as Sarge.

‘Well, well, well, who do have we here?’ the old man said, grinning widely as he ruffled Jimmy’s hair. ‘Thass a sight for sore eyes. I’m right ready for a brew and a biscuit. How’s about you?’ He went to the side of the hut and reached under the arch of the wheel, pulling out a key. ‘Come on, laddie. Let’s get that ole kettle on.’

He showed Jimmy how to lay the fire in the black pot-bellied stove that sat on four legs near the doorway, its chimney reaching up through the ceiling. First he screwed up coils of newspaper – ‘not too tight or it won’t catch’ – then topped it with twigs of fine kindling, carefully stored in an alcove to make sure they were good and dry. On top of this careful construction he placed a small log.

Then he reached up to the shelf and took down a large box of Swan Vestas. ‘Now come the magic,’ he said, lighting the newspaper coils at each side before closing the door. ‘We’ll let that draw for a minute or two, then we can add a big ’un when it get going.’ Jimmy watched, fascinated, as the fire caught and the flames flickered red behind the fan-shaped vent in the stove door.

While they were lighting the stove I took a moment to glance round the rest of the hut. An arched ceiling made the single room appear larger than I’d expected. At the far end, curtains of old army blankets were drawn back to reveal a bed with drawers beneath. A cupboard and shelves held a few cooking utensils – wooden spoons, blackened saucepans and a battered frying pan. There was no sink, but a large metal milk churn stood by the door, filled with water. It was a shock to realise that Eli had to haul every pint that he needed either from the stream or from a tap in the village. A kettle rested on the hob.

I hadn’t considered that Eli would be much of a reader, but a quick glance at the bookshelf proved that his interests were varied: a few Agatha Christie mysteries, Pride and Prejudice, A Christmas Carol, a book of collected English poetry, a small encyclopaedia and The Countryman’s Book of Birds. Propping them up at one end was a pile of London Illustrated News magazines and, at the other, a box-file marked ‘Land’.