Betsy was blooming and was now about to give birth to her fifth child. Mags would have loved to have gone up to Scotland to be with her, but couldn’t put off the trip to France any longer. It had been music to her ears to hear Betsy telling her about her life and singing the virtues of Angus. ‘Eeh, lass, if you’re half as happy with your Jerome as I am with me Angus, then you’re in for a good life.’

‘I will be,’ Mags told her. ‘Jerome is wonderful, Betsy. He is like Montel in a lot of ways, and yet different. Uniquely himself.’

And now they were standing on the steps of the magnificent Assemblée Nationale in Paris, looking up at the columns standing like guards over the entrance. For Mags and Beth, a momentous occasion was upon them, as Beth was to receive her father’s medal, the Légion d’honneur. Mags had arranged it all through the French Embassy in London.

Beth looked lovely in her double-breasted light-grey coat with matching beret. Her legs were clad in white leggings and she wore shiny black shoes. Mags and Jerome stood on each side of her, and as Jerome was fluent in French, he was to translate. Mags could hardly believe that Beth was just eighteen months old, as she walked with pride and seemed to fully understand the significance of the day.

As the presentation was of a military medal, the French army was in attendance and stood to attention at the bottom of the steps. When the doors opened and Aristide Briand, the French prime minister, walked through, there was the sound of a hundred men standing to attention, with a background of squawking birds taking to the skies.

Mags’s nerves clenched as they climbed the steps. Monsieur Briand greeted them in English and then, taking the medal from a cushion held by an attendant, proclaimed in French why it was being presented. A lump came to Mags’s throat as Jerome whispered to her how he was praising Montel’s bravery and that of his child, who was standing here about to collect her late father’s medal. Oh, Montel, I hope you can see this. Look at our little girl standing to attention. She is doing you proud.

When Monsieur Briand bent forward and spoke to Beth, she looked up at Jerome.

‘He says you must feel very proud today. Say “yes”, darling.’

‘Yes.’ As she said this, Beth nodded her head vigorously, no doubt remembering how Mags had told her over and over again what a special occasion this was.

Monsieur Briand smiled. Then he wiped a tear from his eye and, bending down, pinned the medal to Beth’s coat and kissed her on each cheek. Beth grinned up at him. ‘Mush-tash tickles Beth.’

Mags was mortified. But the prime minister coughed and took out a large handkerchief and pretended to blow his nose, with his eyes twinkling as he looked at her.

After that, he shook hands with Mags and Jerome and whispered something. And later, after the band had played and the prime minister had gone back inside, Jerome told her that he’d said what a charming child they had, and he had no doubt she would go on to do great things.