‘That’s what used to drive the other girls wild,’ Lilian said. ‘Mum said he could charm the birds off the trees, and always keep them wondering.’

She was fifty-eight, with grey hair and a vivid face. She smiled when she spoke of her parents.

The photograph had been taken sixty-three years earlier. It showed a fine-looking young man, splendid in airman’s uniform, his head slightly cocked, his features alive with sardonic humour. It bore only a faint resemblance to the old man that he was now, but the glint in his eyes had survived.

He was crouching on the wing of an aeroplane, one arm resting on a raised knee, his face turned to the camera, yet with a mysterious air of gazing into the future, as though he could see what was coming and was eager to meet it. Everything in the picture was redolent of life and masculine attraction.

‘He may have been a hero back then, but I’ll bet he was a devil, too,’ Pippa said gleefully.

She was just twenty-one and beautiful. Her mother was immensely proud of her but she didn’t let that show too often. ‘Too attractive for her own good,’ was her favourite expression to conceal her pride.

‘Yes, I’ve heard he was a devil, among many other things,’ she agreed, looking back at the picture of Flight Lieutenant Mark Sellon. ‘By the way, the local TV station has been in touch. They want to do a piece-hero and wife celebrate sixty years of marriage. And the local paper. They’re both sending someone to the party this afternoon to get some pictures and a few words about all the fantastic things he did in the war.’

‘Grandpa won’t like that,’ Pippa observed. ‘He hates going back over that time. Have you ever realised how little we actually know about it? He always avoids the subject. “Ask Gran”, he says. But she doesn’t tell much either.’