‘We was first,’ said Bill firmly, ‘It definitely sounded like ours was first. You made it past midnight love, you absolute trooper, Connie Cooper.’

But Connie wasn’t listening; she was too busy staring at the wonderful little creature cooing in her arms.

New Year’s Day 1990

The next morning, Connie was singing quietly to the baby when Bill returned to the hospital with William.

‘Look who’s here?’ he said, putting William down on the ground. The boy immediately toddled over to the bed saying, ‘Mama’, arms outstretched to Connie.

‘Do you want to meet your sister, William?’ Connie said, patting the bed beside her. William clambered up, so she had a child in each arm. ‘This is baby Quinn.’

She held William’s hand so he could gently pat his new sister.

‘You can’t call her Quinn now,’ said Bill.

‘Why not?’ said Connie, her eyes darting up to look at him.

‘’Cause that’s what that other lady called hers, the one that won the money.’

‘What?’ Connie said, her voice a whisper. She carefully placed the baby back in the crib next to her bed. ‘What you on about, Bill?’

‘It’s all over the radio. That baby what won all the money just for being born a minute before ours, he’s called Quinn. I still say we were first. I reckon those midwives cooked up between them the times they logged, based on who was going to look prettier in the paper,’ he said gruffly, rubbing two large palms over his bald scalp.

‘Quinn? She called her baby Quinn?’ Connie couldn’t believe it.

‘Yeah, so we can’t call ours that too, we’d look daft. Their Quinn’s all over the news, he’s famous, plus everyone thinks it’s a lad’s name now.’ Connie sat quietly, stunned. ‘I’ve always liked Minnie for a girl,’ Bill went on. ‘What do you think, Will? Baby Minnie. She might not be rich, but she sure is beautiful.’ He leant in to kiss his wife on the forehead, stroking the baby’s cheek with his calloused plasterer’s hands.

Connie was too tired to think. She needed to sleep. She needed to feed the baby. And she needed to work out how she was going to take care of a toddler and a newborn at the same time. She could argue with Bill about the name later.

But by the time they got home and Connie had got some sleep, baby Quinn Hamilton, the first nineties baby, was all over the national news. ‘The Luckiest Baby in the Land,’ read one headline. ‘A win for Quinn!’ said the reporter on the breakfast show. The name felt spoilt now for Connie, the newspapers taunting her with the money she might have won. Besides, Bill had already started calling the baby Minnie. Connie sat on the sofa feeding her child, watching Tara being interviewed by the television presenter.