She set aside these worries over Martin and concentrated on getting the girls ready to meet their grandmother. Rose had been only months old when she’d left Cliffehaven and Emily had been born in Somerset, and although Peggy had come down to the farm to see her shortly after the birth, she knew that neither child would remember her.

Anne tried not to think about the sadness that would cause her mother, and felt a wave of guilt wash over her as she wrestled the girls into cardigans. ‘It’ll be cold at the seaside,’ she said, remembering the chill even in the summer if the wind was coming off the sea. ‘Now do sit still, you two, and let me sort out these hair ribbons.’

Rose enjoyed having her hair brushed and sat patiently as Anne retied the ribbons, but Emily squirmed and whined, and the simple task took much longer. ‘Good girl,’ she said finally. ‘Why don’t you kneel up next to Rose and look out of the window? There are lots of things to see.’

She looked at Charlie and handed him the hairbrush. ‘Your great mop could do with a brush too,’ she said. ‘Mum won’t see how handsome you are with all that hair flopping over your eyes.’

Charlie ran the brush haphazardly through the dark tangle and handed it back. ‘Will Grandad be there to meet us?’ he asked with the now familiar adolescent break in his voice, and the hint of the soft burr of Somerset.

‘I expect so,’ said Anne. ‘He’ll probably have Harvey with him too. Do you remember Harvey?’

‘Of course I do,’ Charlie replied indignantly. ‘He and I had great adventures with Grandad in the woods and on the hills, but I expect they’re both too old now to get up there any more,’ he added wistfully.

‘I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised to find that both are still in fine fettle, and could probably walk you to a standstill,’ Anne replied with a wry smile. She eyed his jumper and old corduroys. ‘I do wish you’d worn something smarter,’ she sighed. ‘You look as disreputable as your grandfather in that get-up.’

Charlie grinned. ‘That’s better than looking like a stupid schoolboy in a cap and blazer,’ he retorted. ‘And if I look like Grandad, then I’ll take it as a compliment. He was always my hero.’

‘More than Dad?’ asked Anne with a frown.

Charlie bit his lip. ‘Dad was terrific in a different way,’ he replied. ‘And now he’s out in Burma fighting the Japs, he’s a real hero too, with medals and everything, and when it’s my turn to go to war, I want to be just like him.’

‘God forbid,’ breathed Anne, horrified by the thought of her little brother going to war – or the idea that there could ever be another.