Netta nodded: one look at those costumes had convinced her that Polly was a sewing natural, an apprentice worth training up. If ever she rose to the dizzy heights of having her own premises, then Polly was the helper for her.

*

The garden party was a great success and the scorching heatwave brought everyone searching for shade as they watched the little ones go through their paces in the home-made costumes. Netta was resting from the exertions of the Scottish dancing display, walking in the shade of the old woodland path, when a familiar voice called her name and she spun round. It was Drew Stirling.

‘Netta Hunter… Thought it was you jigging in the sunlight. Must be mad, dancing in all this heat. So we meet again in the undergrowth!’

‘Not you again! What are you doing here? And where’s Miss Mackeever?’ Netta shaded her eyes to see him standing under a branch in a pre-war crumpled linen suit and open shirt worn with a Panama hat cocked at a rakish angle and a cravat skewered with a gold pin.

‘Lord knows. Buying up Harrogate, no doubt. This isn’t her sort of occasion, and it’s strictly business for me. I’m on the Management Committee for the Local Authority, a sort of MO. Come to lend moral support and all that.’

‘You’re still a doctor then?’

‘Heavens above! why not? Doctors’re a valuable commodity these days with this new National Health Service about to appear any day. “From cradle to grave” – where would you be without us? You don’t just get chucked out for liking a dram or three. There’d be no quacks left if that was the case.

‘No, I’m one of the new breed of public servant, school doctor if you must know, nothing too taxing. I just line them up, stick a needle in their arm or a stick down their throat, poke in ears, up noses, examine their skin like a vet. Try to catch anything before it hurts. And, boy, is there plenty to catch in Leeds with all the slums and shortages!’

He pulled out a hip flask from his pocket and offered it to her. ‘Fancy a swig? All this jollification makes me thirsty. I never know where you’re going to pop up. You make me nervous. Ginnie usually does enough talking for both of us. Come and have a stroll in the shade, just like old times in Park Royal.’

Netta brushed aside his offer of a drink but walked along the dusty path with him, trying not to catch the undergrowth on her best dancing dress. It was cool under the dappled shade with the music of a silver band echoing across the long garden.

‘Jean Brownleys asked me to help the older girls do the costumes. I’ve enjoyed it. It’s made me think how lucky we are to have families, however distant and troublesome.’