He moved towards her, but the ballroom had filled up, and suddenly he was irritatingly popular: everyone wanted to talk to him. During his progress through the crowd he was surprised to see dull old Charlie Farquharson dancing with the vivacious Daisy Peshkov. He could not recall seeing Charlie dance with anyone, let alone a tootsie like Daisy. What had she done to bring him out of his shell?

By the time he reached Joanne, she was at the end of the room farthest from the band, and to his chagrin she was deep in discussion with a group of boys four or five years older than he. Fortunately, he was taller than most of them, so the difference was not too obvious. They were all holding Coke glasses, but Woody could smell Scotch: one of them must have a bottle in his pocket.

As he joined them, he heard Victor Dixon say: ‘No one’s in favour of lynching, but you have to understand the problems they have in the South.’

Woody knew that Senator Wagner had proposed a law to punish sheriffs who permitted lynchings – but President Roosevelt had refused to back the bill.

Joanne was outraged. ‘How can you say that, Victor? Lynching is murder! We don’t have to understand their problems, we have to stop them killing people!’

Woody was pleased to learn how much Joanne shared his political values. But clearly this was not a good time to ask her to dance, which was unfortunate.

‘You don’t get it, Joanne, honey,’ said Victor. ‘Those Southern Negroes are not really civilized.’

I might be young and inexperienced, Woody thought, but I wouldn’t have made the mistake of speaking so condescendingly to Joanne.

‘It’s the people who carry out lynchings who are uncivilized!’ she said.

Woody decided this was the moment to make his contribution to the argument. ‘Joanne is right,’ he said. He made his voice lower in pitch, to sound older. ‘There was a lynching in the home town of our help, Joe and Betty, who have looked after me and my brother since we were babies. Betty’s cousin was stripped naked and burned with a blowtorch, while a crowd watched. Then he was hanged.’ Victor glared at him, resentful of this kid who was taking Joanne’s attention away; but the others in the group listened with horrified interest. ‘I don’t care what his crime was,’ Woody said. ‘The white people who did that to him are savages.’

Victor said: ‘Your beloved President Roosevelt didn’t support the anti-lynch bill, though, did he?’

‘No, and that was very disappointing,’ said Woody. ‘I know why he made that decision: he was afraid that angry Southern congressmen would retaliate by sabotaging the New Deal. All the same, I would have liked him to tell them to go to hell.’

Victor said: ‘What do you know? You’re just a kid.’ He took a silver flask from his jacket pocket and topped up his drink.

Joanne said: ‘Woody’s political ideas are more grown-up than yours, Victor.’