Sometimes she felt as if she had been whisked up and plonked in an alien planet among foreigners and wept for the hills of home and the sea breeze. This was exile indeed. Vida Bloom, true to her word, had quickly fixed her up with work at Salomon’s but she and Arnie were no substitute for Galloway folk. The Blooms had their own community, faith and friends. Netta would always be an outsider there.

She kept her promise to Dr Anwar, giving him regular progress reports, returning to the little back street surgery and the warmth of his interest. He listened to her sadness with a kindly nod of the head, his strange accent oddly comforting. He liked to talk of his time in Scotland. He had seen far more of it than she had ever done and assumed she knew Skye and the Cairngorms, the Trossachs and the Western Isles intimately.

‘When I first went to your country, it was so wet and damp, I could not get warm. I did not think I could live in such a climate but there were a few fellow countrymen scattered in the University, as lonely, cold and miserable as I was. Enough to make a friend or two, enough to make it bearable. We talked of home and kept our festivals. It is true that you must find your own amongst strangers. Follow what you love and it will lead you where you need to go. It’s the only way for you to survive here, young lady. You must find a bit of your own country here, in music or books, I ken not, but you’ll recognise it. Keep yourself busy with your sewing. Be hopeful and on the look out for that bit of sugar to sweeten the bitter pill.’ He smiled at his little phrase. ‘Enough is a feast, as you say?’

Netta looked gratefully at the man who had saved her life. He spoke of hope like the soldier in Park Royal before he fled over the wall in search of liquid gold. How strange she should think of him now. The two men had talked sense in such different ways. ‘Thank you, Dr Anwar, you give me hope. How can I ever repay you?’

‘By putting one foot in front of the other, slowly, until a path opens up before you. One day this strange journey will make sense to you but not now. It is too soon. Remember, a mountain is climbed from the foothills. Find some of your own people, they will help you.’

Homeward Bound, July 1946