The whole thing started with a call at about 11am. I was loading bike frames on to the conveyor belt. Bend, grab, stretch, hang. Over and over. After a few days, you get into the rhythm. I could have been sitting in a deckchair, daydreaming on the beach.

“There’s a phone call for you.” The foreman was annoyed. You work in a factory, the world goes away until the siren signals end of shift. The foreman would be doing the bend, grab, stretch and hang routine, while I spoke on the phone, like some boss, or office worker.

The call was from my mother. She wanted me to meet her in Birmingham, for lunch. I tried to explain that there was no time. I had to get a bus there, and a bus back. She didn’t seem to understand. “Don’t worry,” she told me, “just meet me at Snow Hill station, I’ll take you to the Wine Lodge. “It’s on me.”

A bittersweet memory of an aunt on the day Princess Diana died.