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Beth was sure, even though it wasn’t stated, that the cash she’d found in the suitcase was left after winding up her mother’s affairs, and selling various items. Elizabeth did mention around the same time that she opened a bank account in Richmond.

As there was no bank book in the handbag, Beth had to assume she’d drawn out the money when she bought the ticket to Ireland.

That was just as well, as Beth had never had a bank account and wouldn’t have the least idea of how they worked.

One of the oddest passages in last year’s diary was about her godmother, Miss Miranda Falcon. The only mention of her was when she died, in late 1938, a year before her mother’s death.

I got used to always getting a card and a postal order on my birthday, and then at Christmas, which just said ‘love always from Auntie Miranda’.

Nothing more. Mother insisted I wrote a thank you letter each time, and lectured me on the art of letter-writing, not just about whatever had been sent to me.

If it was money you must never specify the amount, only something like ‘I shall put it towards the book I want’, or whatever is appropriate.

I should also ask after Auntie Miranda’s health, say a little about current news, and a bit about my own life.

As Mother said, thank you letters should be at least two sheets of quality unlined paper, interesting to the reader, asking about their interests and hobbies, and any places she may had visited.

Beth was glad of this advice. She’d never had any reason to send a thank you letter, and now if the circumstances arose, she could write one without making a blunder.

‘Mother was very upset when she heard her friend was dead,’ Elizabeth continued.

‘She hadn’t seen her for donkey’s years but they’d been at school together.

Miranda had become a governess, working for families in France, Italy and other places.

She attended my parents’ wedding and my christening.

Mother said she wished she’d made more of an effort to keep in close contact. I don’t recall ever meeting her.’

Elizabeth went on to say that although she always wrote to thank Aunt Miranda for the postal orders, Miranda never wrote back to her. Then her mother died and she couldn’t ask her any further questions about this intriguing godmother.

‘When I got the news from the solicitors in Waterford that I’d been left her cottage, I was astounded. It felt like a second chance in life, something to take my mind off the loss of Mother and Bernard. But I regret not trying to get to know her or visiting her while she was still alive.’

Elizabeth had followed that entry a couple of days later with a little nervous musing.

‘Do I really want to go to Ireland? I’m told it’s very beautiful but will I like living there?

There is so much poverty, I believe, and I won’t know anyone, I’ll have no job.

It seems ridiculous to throw caution to the wind, it could be the biggest mistake I’ve ever made.

But on the other hand it would be very ungracious to turn it down. ’

That night after the all-clear sounded, Beth dug out the bundle of old photographs and went through them painstakingly.

The sort of people she’d known back in Whitechapel didn’t have a camera to take photographs.

However, weddings, christenings or husbands going off to war often prompted them to have a professional one taken.

There were quite a few professional ones in Elizabeth’s bundle, many still in cardboard folders, and as she flicked through them, she saw Elizabeth’s parents on their wedding day, then one much older picture which, judging by the Victorian clothes, was of her grandparents’ wedding, and one of Elizabeth’s father in army uniform, dated 1914.

Then finally her mother holding her new baby in her arms, presumably taken to send to her husband, as it was dated April 1914.

Beth pounced on a picture dated October 1914.

It was a classic christening one, with a tree and the churchyard behind them.

Baby was in her mother’s arms dressed in a long lace-trimmed number and matching bonnet.

Her mother was flanked by a dark-haired man in a suit and winged collar and an elegant lady in a gauzy picture hat.

That had to be Miranda, the godmother, and maybe the man was a godfather.

In the file of letters and other documents was the telegram saying that Corporal Alfred Manning was killed in action on 2 February 1915, so presumably he hadn’t been granted leave for his daughter’s christening.

There was nothing to say who the dark-haired man in civilian clothes was. Maybe he was a friend of Miranda’s.

Studying the christening photo carefully, she noted Miranda’s dress and matching jacket were beautifully cut, with embroidery down the front of the edge-to-edge jacket which suggested the outfit had been very expensive and very stylish.

She just wished she knew what colour the outfit was, as even her shoes appeared to match.

In contrast, Elizabeth’s mother looked dowdy, her dress dark and too tight and the hem uneven.

But maybe she’d spent all her money on her baby’s christening robe.

How sad it was that not long after she’d hear that her husband was killed in action, and he would never see his baby.

Beth lay back on the bed, surrounded by photographs and letters, and felt a little ashamed to be trawling through another’s family photographs, yet she had to scrutinize them and note facial expressions to get some idea of what they were like, how they lived, who they were.

One thing that surprised her, revealed by both the letters and the photos, was that her friend hadn’t had the rather privileged childhood she’d imagined. So that confident, classy air she had, she’d learned.

Thinking on that reminded Beth of Auntie Ruth again. Without that stalwart, intelligent and kind woman, little Mary might never have survived.

Theirs was a secret relationship. It had to be. If Ronnie had found out Ruth was befriending and coaching Mary, he’d have stopped it. So two or three times a week Mary would tell her mother she was having her tea at her friend Flo’s home and instead went to Ruth.

For Mary those precious hours each week meant warmth, comfort and, indeed, love, which went on undetected for five years.

It was Ruth who taught her to stop dropping her H’s, and using the word ‘ain’t’.

Under her guidance Mary soon began to read fluently and to do arithmetic.

But there was so much more to the time they spent together.

Ruth told her about other countries, and English history.

She taught her basic cooking, sewing and knitting, and lectured her on hygiene.

She said many times that as soon as Mary was old enough she should get a job as a nursemaid or housemaid, and leave home.

Ruth never said Emily Price was a prostitute, but she did say Ronnie had pushed her mother into bad things and he would do the same to Mary.

After just a few days Beth found she didn’t really want to leave Blandford Street.

She liked motherly Margery and her comfortable home, and even during the nightly bombings she felt safe in the cellar.

She kept getting the jitters about going to Ireland.

What if someone turned up who knew she wasn’t the real Elizabeth Manning?

But then she could hardly stay in England now for the same reason.

Beth knew her main failing was being indecisive. Perhaps that was because she’d been told what to do all her life. First by her mother, who ordered her about like she was her personal slave. Then at fourteen the Bradleys took over. Indecision had to stop.

Daily she was learning that the bombs, which sounded so close, were not, and were targeting the docks.

She felt more comfortable, and her guilt at what she was doing abated.

But after listening to Margery saying it was only a matter of time before the German pilots began to use the Thames, glittering in moonlight, as a pathway into the centre of London, she did want to run to Ireland and safety.

Beth decided that being here safely in London for six days was enough, and tomorrow after she had her stitches out, she would go straight to Paddington Station and exchange her rail ticket.

Once she’d done that and tucked the ticket into her purse she would know it was real. No turning back!

Two days later, Margery hugged Beth before she got into the taxi taking her to Paddington Station. ‘Goodbye and God bless,’ she said. ‘If it doesn’t work out there for you, come straight back. I’ll always find room for you.’

Such warmth from the kindly guest-house owner was very touching.

It was also a way out if she didn’t like Ireland.

But her confidence had been boosted by wearing Elizabeth’s grey striped two-piece, with a pink blouse beneath it.

She’d completed the outfit with a pink beret she’d bought from Selfridges.

She could hardly believe that the sophisticated and fashionable girl looking back at her in the mirror was once drab, meek Mary Price who no one ever noticed.

As she got into the taxi Margery pressed a small bag into her hands.

‘Just some things for the journey,’ she said. ‘The book is one of my favourites. I hope you’ll like it as much as I did. It should make the train journey shorter, and there’s some sandwiches, cake and fruit.’

Beth had to bite back tears at the older woman’s kindness. She wasn’t used to people caring about her.

Even with a good book to read, the train journey to Fishguard seemed interminable.

The train was quite full, mostly women and children leaving London to escape the Blitz.

Presumably they had relatives or friends in Wales.

She didn’t want to get into conversation with anyone, so she closed her eyes, and relived her last night in London.