She waited while Daisy picked some dandelions and daisies from the grass verge, and watched as fighters and bombers thundered overhead. They’d been noisy since five this morning, and as she looked out to sea, she could make out the dark palls of smoke rising from the distant shores of France. The raids had grown in intensity of late, and Peggy was amazed that there could be anything left to bomb over there.

She took the wilting flowers from Daisy and held her little hand as she continued along the narrow road towards Beach View. She’d heard nothing from Pauline since Dolly’s letters, and Peggy was rather relieved that she seemed to have accepted things and not made her usual fuss – or if she had, poor Frank had borne the brunt of it.

She gave a sigh as she reached the cul-de-sac and regarded the pile of rubble that had once been two fine houses. Beach View looked as shabby and unkempt as the others in the row, with bullet scars pockmarking the walls, the lovely stained-glass windows on either side of the door replaced by strips of hardboard. The brass knocker was almost black from lack of polish, and the concrete steps hadn’t been whitewashed for years. There had once been fancy wrought-iron lamps set into the sturdy pillars either side of the bottom step, but they’d been shattered during a raid, and Ron had taken a rasp to them and cut them off at the base. Jim wouldn’t recognise the place when he came home.

Disheartened, but determined not to let it spoil her day, she continued up the hill and along the alley to her back gate.

Daisy grabbed the dandelions and daisies and ran ahead of her to Cordelia, who was sitting in a deckchair reading the newspaper with Queenie curled contentedly in her lap. ‘Gan-Gan, look what I got,’ she yelled, shoving the flowers at her, and making the cat skitter off to the safety of the shed roof.

‘They’re lovely, darling,’ Cordelia replied, taking the poor things from the child’s hot little hand. ‘But I think they might need a bit of water, don’t you?’ She struggled out of the chair and found an empty jam jar in Ron’s pile of things to be taken to the tip by the back door, then filled it from the outside tap and let Daisy arrange the flowers.

Peggy smiled as she watched them. Daisy adored Cordelia and the feeling was mutual, and it was heart-warming to see them so absorbed in each other. Daisy’s unexpected arrival had given new purpose to Cordelia’s life after the boys had been evacuated to Somerset, and with the girls regarding her as a grandmother, she felt loved and useful.