Nan usually arrived about nine, and they worked together until six, except for an hour’s break for the midday meal. Then May had to stay and tidy up and sweep the scraps of fabric and threads of cotton off the floor before she went back to the house. But that was a vast improvement on what she had been used to. No more rising at the crack of dawn to scrub and dust; no more making up fires and pounding clothes in the copper and turning the mangle; no more being ordered about by Mrs Wilkins.

Nan owned a little terraced house ten minutes’ walk from the shop and May had a room on the top floor. It was not large, but there was a comfortable bed and a cupboard for her things, and on the floor below there was one of the new water closets, so no more emptying chamber pots. The only thing that bothered her was the fact that Nan was far from house-proud. The sitting room, which May was welcome to share, was strewn with bits and pieces left over from her trade, together with old newspapers and knick-knacks of various sorts; no one ever swept the stairs and the kitchen needed a thorough clean. Coming from a household where a speck of dust or a dirty dish would be seen as a crime against the natural order of things, May found this initially disturbing, and then wonderfully liberating.

She soon understood why Nan spent little time in the kitchen. The shop had a canteen, where all the workers took their main meal of the day at twelve o’clock, and in the evening Nan’s habit was to buy a pie or some fish and chips from a local shop. Cooking did not figure in her daily routine. May was happy to settle for that. She had spent long enough in a kitchen.

Usually, after they had eaten in the evening, Nan would declare that she was popping out for a ‘constitutional’. May at first assumed that this meant a walk, and offered to accompany her; but the offer was politely refused. ‘I’ll be meeting up with some old friends. It wouldn’t interest you.’ She returned with a smell on her breath that May could not at first identify. It was one of the girls who worked in the seamstress’s department who explained it. ‘She goes to the pub, of course. Everyone knows Nan likes a drink.’

There was only one cloud on her happiness. The memory of that night in Mrs Feather’s house still haunted her. Every night, when she said her prayers, she thanked God for sending Mr Freeman to save her; but even so there were many nights when she woke with a start, sweating and shivering, from a dream where she was back in that room and something unknown and terrible was about to come through the door.