‘Had he heard of me?’ said Dovidl. He was turning into quite the little artist.

‘I don’t remember mentioning your name,’ I said, woundingly.

The next week we turned up to find Flesch gone – to Holland for a concert tour, we were told. It was, as we got used to saying, the last we ever saw of him. Holland was a neutral country, and Flesch somehow convinced himself that it was safer than England, that the Germans would bypass it as they had done in the First War. He sent a letter to his pupils, regretting his indefinite absence and urging them to work hard. He promised to write.

When the Germans invaded the Netherlands in May 1940, Flesch was trapped. Arrested twice and fearing deportation to the death camps, he managed to get a visa to his native Hungary, from where, helped by the conductor Ernest Ansermet, he reached Switzerland, where he died in 1944. He left behind a diverse and far-flung set of pupils – Ginette Neveu in France, Alma Moodie in Australia, Henryk Szeryng in Mexico. Three were left teacherless in London – Ida Haendel, Josef Hassid and, the youngest by three years, Dovidl.

Unlike Haendel and Hassid, who had made impressive débuts and were well on the way to becoming practised performers, Dovidl was several years short of concert readiness. He lacked polish, poise and savoir-faire , the basic safety standards for setting foot on stage. His artistic personality was embryonic, requiring years of attentive mothering from a master star-maker like Flesch.

‘We’ll have to find you another teacher,’ sighed Father.

‘Absolutely not,’ Dovidl replied.

‘I beg your pardon?’ said Mother in her glassiest tone.

‘I am pupil of Professor Flesch,’ said Dovidl. ‘I do not wish to confuse teaching methods. There is risk in changing teachers, even if they are English excellencies. I wait for Professor Flesch to come back. Meantime I work on the material he left me and make good progress.’

‘I think we had better be the judges of that,’ said Mother frostily.

‘I appreciate your concern, David,’ said Father. ‘I have seen too many good violinists ruined by an excess of teachers. However, we do need to seek guidance in this matter, you and I. May I suggest that we consult Mr Albert Sammons, who is demonstrably the best violinist this country has ever produced, and see what he has to say.’

‘Do I come with?’ said Dovidl.

‘Of course.’

‘May I come, too, Father?’ I piped up.

‘That might be helpful,’ he agreed.

Some days later, we caught the fifty-nine to Oxford Street and a seventy-three to the Royal Albert Hall. Skirting the sombre memorial to Queen Victoria’s German consort, we descended a steep flight of steps and entered the Royal College of Music, equally marmoreal in appearance and atmosphere.

‘Is this conservatoire or cathedral?’ whispered Dovidl.

I shushed him earnestly. England’s finest was bearing down upon us.