“I’m fine, Miss Brooks. How many dogs do you have?”

” Six at the last count, but I fear old Jeremy hasn’t long in this world, like a good many of us. Listen to me getting all maudlin. Come on the two of you into the kitchen and have a nice cup of tea.”

The farmhouse was quite large but Amy lived, ate, and slept in the smoke darkened kitchen which had a long oak table piled high with newspapers and books and the remnants of that mornings breakfast, with cats everywhere. A large inglenook fireplace housed a black range in which a fire roared, upon which rested a black cast iron kettle that whistled contently as we entered the room.

“Sit by the fire, Roland, and I’ll make a fresh pot of tea.”

And my father did and drank his tea and promptly fell asleep by the fire with his legs stretched out to dry his trousers. Amy was sitting opposite my father and in the glow of the fire she looked young again.

” I wanted to be an actress once, Stevie, and star at the theatre in Stratford, and I used to go quite often too and could see myself as Juliet falling in love with Romeo. I remember one Shakespeare’s Birthday, 1905 I think it was, watching the Shakespeare Club doing Ben Jonson’s Pan’s
Anniversary, on the Bancroft Gardens, which was a bit silly and done for the toffs. The sporting events held on the fields opposite the theatre were much more fun and my brother won a cup for the one hundred yard dash, and later we had tea at the Hathaway Tea Rooms and in the evening went to see Benson’s production of The Comedy of Errors, which was a real hoot. Oh, Stevie, how I wanted to be an actress and wear all those lovely costumes and speak those lovely words.”

She then went quiet and as she stared into the fire, and my father slept, I looked around the room and on the mantelpiece above the fire I saw a photograph of a cowboy sitting on a horse.

” Is that a real cowboy, Miss Brooks?”

” That’s my brother, Stevie.”

” A real cowboy.”

” A real cowboy.”

” Is it the same cowboy that won the hundred yard dash?”

” Yes. He emigrated to Canada soon after and got a job as a ranch hand somewhere, not sure where.”

” Calgary.”

” Hmm?”

” Probably Calgary. That’s where most of the cowboys hang out.”

” Probably.”

” Is he still there?”

” God love you no. He died in the Great War in France.”

” Oh. Do you still want to be an actress?”

” No, I don’t think so.”

It was then she rummaged through the papers and books on the table and gave me the programme for that production of The Comedy of Errors in 1905. I wish I still had it.

” Miss Brooks, I think there’s something on fire.”

And there was. My father’s trousers!