Yes. I remember Adlestrop — the walk, because one morning of cold the Defender drew up there unwontedly. It was mid Jan. The diesel hissed. Esther cleared her throat. No one left and no one came on the bare pavement. What I saw was Adlestrop — only the name…

Although in our case we had stopped deliberately, unlike Edward Thomas, that June afternoon in 1914 that was the beginning and the end of everything.

It was odd that it had taken the Corens so long. We will have had our place in Gloucestershire for ten years come the autumn and we pass the turn for Adlestrop most weekends, shuffling between the Fox at Broadwell, the King’s Head at Bledington, the Fox at Oddington, the Halfway