'And then the black-hearted villain, with a hideous oath, drew a secret dagger from his boot and advanced towards the defenceless…'

'And then the maiden took a pin from her hair and the golden tresses fell from the window, down, down, caressing the castle walls until they almost reached the verdant grass on which he stood…'

Arthur was an energetic, headstrong boy who did not easily sit still; but once the Mam raised her porridge stick he was held in a state of silent enchantment – as if a villain from one of her stories had slipped a secret herb into his food. Knights and their ladies then moved about the tiny kitchen; challenges were issued, quests miraculously fulfilled; armour clanked, chain mail rustled, and honour was always upheld.

These stories were connected, in a way that he did not at first understand, with an old wooden chest beside his parents' bed, which held the papers of the family's descent. Here were different kinds of stories, which more resembled school homework, about the ducal house of Brittany, and the Irish branch of the Percys of Northumberland, and someone who had led Pack's Brigade at Waterloo, and was the uncle of the white, waxen thing he never forgot. And connected to all this were the private lessons in heraldry his mother gave him. From the kitchen cupboard the Mam would pull out large sheets of cardboard, painted and coloured by one of his uncles in London. She would explain the coats of arms, then instruct him in his turn: 'Blazon me this shield!' And he would have to reply, as with multiplication tables: chevrons, estoiles, mullets, cinquefoils, crescents argent, and their glittering like.

At home he learned extra commandments on top of the ten he knew from church. 'Fearless to the strong; humble to the weak', was one, and 'Chivalry towards women, of high and low degree'.