And a right cockup you're making of it too. He could see Myra's fury moderating into malicious pleasure. If only there'd been time to make a few notes. Only a fool relied on divine inspiration when he'd just dumped God!

'Well I'm not going to make a lot of notes… I mean, fuss, because Ada hated fuss. But equally I'm not going to let the passing of this remarkable old lady pass un… er… remarked.'

This got worse! Pull yourself together. If you can brief a bunch of CID cynics and pissed-off plods, no need to be fazed by a pewful of wrinklies. What was Myra rolling her eyeballs at? Doesn't she know a dramatic pause when she hears one?

'Ada was born in Yorkshire though she didn't stay there long. The event which changed her life, changed all our lives, come to think of it, was the Great War. So many died… millions… numbers too large to register. One of them was Ada's father, my great-grandfather. After she got the news, my great-grandmother took her three-year-old daughter and headed down here to

Warwickshire. I've no details of how they lived. I only discovered the Yorkshire connection because I was a nosy kid. Ada wasn't one to go on about the past, maybe because there was too much pain in it for her. But I can guess that one-parent families had it even tougher in those days than they do now. Anyway here they came and here they stayed. This was where Ada grew up and in her turn got married. And in her turn she had a child. And in her turn she saw her husband, my grandfather Colin Pascoe, go off to the wars.

'Did she know as she said goodbye that in her turn she too was never going to see him again? Who knows? But I think she knew. Oh yes. I'm sure she knew.'

That had them. Even Myra was looking rapt..

The child they had was, of course, Peter, my father. Naturally he wishes he could be here today. But as you probably know when he took early retirement a few years back, he decided to follow my eldest sister, Susan, and her family out to Australia, and unfortunately urgent commitments have prevented any of them from making the long journey. But I'm sure we will be very much in their thoughts at this sad time.'