After supper he would return to his room and start work. He’d unearthed some roll-ends of wallpaper in a cupboard and pinned them back-side outwards to the wardrobe door. Using the thickest of pencils he could beg from the draughtsmen’s workshop, he would scribble equations till well past midnight.

The solution would arrive; not on the first evening, perhaps, nor even the second, but usually within the week. The euphoria of discovery was better than any drug, better than wine or whisky, but afterwards sleep was usually impossible.

‘I think I’ve got it, chaps,’ he would announce the following morning, rushing to the blackboard to share his results. It was Watson-Watt’s management style to take a back seat in such discussions, allowing others to take the lead, but no one could mistake the beam on his face as from the tip of Vic’s squeaking chalk would emerge complex equations and diagrams, revealing solutions of elegant simplicity.

Clouds of white powder dusted his shoes as the explanations tumbled from his lips, although he was always careful to claim that they were not ‘his’ solutions. All he desired was that they might be taken forward as the basis for further refinements of the radio detection equipment, which might in turn help to neutralise any future air attacks, safeguarding the country and its populace. It was an exhilarating feeling.

Not everyone seemed to share this enthusiasm. Glances would be passed, leaving a cold sourness in his stomach. Although at first he thought the nit-picking, churlish and sometimes even childish queries were just trying to catch him out, he began to realise they were really signs of something more sinister: jealousy.

At school he’d become accustomed to being the outsider, the brown boy, the bright boy, lousy at games but good at maths and music, and there were always others like himself to pal up with. At university he’d found companionship with other students working alongside him on their own projects, although never in direct competition. Here, among this small group of brilliant minds closeted away in this beautiful place, none of his old strategies seemed to work. Each of the teams had been personally selected by a man many regarded as a god, but instead of working towards a common purpose they seemed to be competing for his approval.

Vic found refuge in the Manor’s gardens, which had been sadly neglected since the Air Ministry took over. The beds in the Round Garden, said to have been the foundations of a long-demolished Martello tower from Napoleonic times, were smothered with couch grass; the roses in the Italian Garden had grown rampant over their pergola, the lily pond was choked with waterweed and the vast walled kitchen garden was cultivating a fine crop of nettles.

What he most loved was the Cliff Walk, a switchback of paths created out of artificial rocks by the former lady of the manor along the sandy crags overhanging the pebbly beach below. Although entirely unprotected from onshore winds, it was often strangely sheltered, even warm. Niches and seating areas created out of the ‘rock’ provided perfect hideaways. From here there was nothing but the vast vista of the North Sea to interrupt his thoughts.