‘It’s the main reason I came down to see you, actually,’ he replied, going a little pink. ‘I know I should have written and told you earlier, but Suzie hasn’t been at all well this time, and to begin with it was all rather uncertain as to whether she might actually miscarry.’

He put his arm around her again. ‘Sorry, Mother, but we didn’t want to tell you until we knew for certain she and the baby would be all right.’

Doris wondered fleetingly if Suzie had brought all this on herself by going to work in that hospital instead of staying at home as any proper mother and wife would do – but of course she couldn’t say that to Anthony. ‘You poor darling,’ she soothed. ‘It must have been a ghastly worry.’

‘It was rather. She’s had to give up her work at the hospital and rest quite a lot, although we did manage to spend a weekend in London to attend one of the MOD functions. Of course Robert and Fran were there, so we had a very jolly time catching up. Fran’s also expecting, though it is still early days, and she told us all she’d bumped into Cissy in Oxford Street. I hadn’t realised Cissy was even in London, let alone driving a taxi about. I take it things didn’t work out with that American flier?’

‘Peggy told me he survived the internment but went straight home to America. It seems his fling with Cissy had been just that, and he hadn’t harboured thoughts of them getting together again. Cissy was terribly cut up about it, but she’s tough like all the women in our family and has made a new life for herself in London.’

Doris looked at the kitchen clock again, and quickly tucked the precious snapshots back into the envelope. ‘We’ll be late if we don’t leave now,’ she said, gathering up her jacket and handbag, ‘and if there’s one thing John is a real stickler about, it’s time-keeping.’ She grinned up at her handsome son. ‘I’ve learnt that you can take the man out of the army, but never the army out of the man – and that goes for his son Michael, too.’

He followed her down the narrow hall and waited for her to lock the front door. ‘What’s Michael like?’ he asked as they headed for the car.

‘A little stiff and formal, but pleasant enough,’ she replied, sliding into the passenger seat as Anthony held the door for her. ‘But I think he suffered quite an ordeal in the POW camp, so it’s understandable,’ she added, not wanting her son to be influenced by her opinion. ‘I’ll be interested to see what you make of him.’