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Sadly all her childhood memories were tainted by Ronnie. It wasn’t as if her mother would tell her romantic little stories about her father, possibly because their courtship and subsequent hurried wedding meant she didn’t know him that well.

Beth was worldly enough now to appreciate that a young widow with a small child, struggling to make ends meet, must have felt Ronnie was a godsend.

But he wasn’t, not once he’d got his feet well under the table.

He not only slapped her so hard when her mother was out that she was left with marks on her face, but then progressed to beating her with a cane by the time she was seven.

He didn’t bother to only do it when her mother was out or drunk either, he did it in front of her, and if her mother tried to intervene, she got it too.

The evening in May when Mary was ten was still as shocking and painful as it had been then. Ronnie grabbed hold of her and dragged her into the bedroom. She screamed and he slapped her hard across the face. ‘Time you learned what your mother does when she goes out,’ he snarled at her.

Ronnie wasn’t a big man but he was muscular and very strong as he’d been a trapeze artist in his father’s fairground before the Great War. Mary had seen a photograph of him once in the glittery costume he wore on the trapeze.

But he was no longer that slender, lithe man with jet black hair and a wide smile.

He was flabby, smelled of sweat, and his teeth were stained and rotten.

He caught hold of her around her chest, pinning her arms to her sides, and hauled her into her bedroom.

It was a tiny, dark room which smelled of damp.

It held nothing more than the single bed he had bought for her when he first moved in with them, some shelves holding a few worn books, and a pink teddy bear her mother had bought her the first time she realized Ronnie was beating her.

Throwing her down on the bed, he stuck his hand up her dress and pulled off her knickers in one swift movement.

Then he opened his flies and, kneeling either side of her hips, pulled out his cock.

‘This what your mum does when she goes out,’ he said, grabbing her hand and making her close her fingers around it.

‘She gets it hard so the man can stick it in her. That’s her job. ’

Mary was astounded and terrified when his cock became twice the size in her hand. But then he pulled her legs apart and did just what he’d said.

Stuck it in her!

But it didn’t go in easily; it hurt like she was being split in two, and when she screamed he grabbed the pillow and put it over her face.

On and on the pain continued as he grunted like a hungry dog having its first meal in days, and she was struggling to breathe as his face was holding the pillow in place over hers.

Finally it was over, and he got off her, slamming the door behind him.

She was so sore she couldn’t even sit up at first, and just lay there crying.

Later she heard him go out, and then she got up to go and wash herself in the kitchen.

They didn’t have a bathroom, they went to the public baths once a week.

Emily was always talking about wanting a flat with a garden and a bathroom, and now Mary understood what Ronnie meant when he said, ‘Do a few more a night and perhaps you’ll get it one day. ’

There was blood all down her legs and she was afraid he’d cut her somehow, but it was mixed with sticky stuff that made her shudder.

That was the day she left her childhood behind. She did her best to avoid ever being alone with Ronnie again, though she failed often. She soon learned that her mother was never going to take her and run away from Ronnie.

A year or so later she began to see her mother drank to blot out what she had become.

She couldn’t leave Ronnie because she was both dependent and afraid of him.

Once, when she was very drunk, Mary had overheard her telling a neighbour that he’d hunt her down like an animal if she left him, and then kill her.

It was tempting to tell a teacher at school, in the hopes she’d be taken away from her home. But she didn’t have the words to explain what Ronnie did, and even if she managed to tell it all, and was believed, wouldn’t her mother be blamed?

Auntie Ruth’s flat upstairs became her sanctuary, where she could feel clean and safe for a couple of hours. She sensed Ruth had some idea of what was happening by her kindness, the way she said Mary should look forward to when she could leave school and get a job with a home.

That was how it was for eight years in all, and though Ronnie disappeared from time to time, sometimes gone for months, giving Mary the hope he’d gone for good, eventually he’d turn up again, sweet-talking her mother if he’d been building roads or doing demolition and had money.

But even without money he got to stay, and he always managed to inflict another rape or beating on Mary.

But in a way it was worse to watch her mother slowly becoming older, battered and scared.

All the remembered sparks of the lively, fun-loving mother Mary remembered from when she was very young fizzled out.

Emily was thirty-four when Mary finally left for good, drink and degradation making her look a decade older.

Mary knew that if she hadn’t left then, Ronnie would have forced her into prostitution too.

Beth walked up to the bedroom overcome by those awful memories she tried so hard to forget.

She sank down on the chair in the window and looked out at the sea, with tears cascading down her cheeks.

Thanks to Auntie Ruth’s help and affection, she’d worked hard at school, learned to cook, sew and do laundry well, because she knew domestic service was the only career open to her.

When she felt sad and hurt, she would slip into a fantasy of living and working in a nice part of London far away from the East End, where her employers would be as kind as Auntie Ruth.

The Bradleys were not exactly kind, but they weren’t cruel, and their Hampstead house was lovely, close to the heath.

Mary watched her employers, their guests and their cook, and read newspapers and books, to learn as much about life beyond being maid-of-all-work, so that one day she could rise to a better position.

She hoped by that time she would’ve forgotten her mother and Ronnie.

Ironically it was just a few days before the bomb and after she’d already applied for a new position in Kent, that Mrs Bradley, in an uncharacteristic moment of generosity and kindness, finally praised her.

‘Mary, you are a gem,’ she said, reaching out and taking Mary’s hand.

‘I’ve never had any maid before so capable or showing such initiative. ’

That still brought a smile to her lips, and she hoped that after Mrs Bradley got the news that Mary Price was killed, she finally came to see she was unlikely to get a ‘gem’ again.

Beth mopped up her tears with a handkerchief. ‘You must forget Mary,’ she said aloud. ‘Grieve for her now, then forget her and be glad you got lucky when you became Beth.’

Beth got up then and went to the desk where she’d seen notepaper and envelopes. Maybe Jack had forgotten her already, but she’d remind him.