Mammy ...

Utter joy as I leave Copenhagen and land in London. I stay in my mother’s home for the first time in maybe 25 years. It is wonderful – a meal cooked in my honour and we watch United (at last) win on the TV.

We talk about Spain and the civil war and – scoop! – I discover my grandfather came to the aid of the Republicans. It turned out that an au pair of theirs went out to Spain as a nurse and Grandpa dispatched a parcel of Shevloff’s finest linens for her to take…Always on the side of the men with the white hats