Sam Youd as John Christopher

I suppose this sense of reassurance may have contributed to making me think of Jinny’s wedding as such a wonderful affair. It helped that we were unused to rich food, too; at home there was...

Mamma said: ‘You know what it’s like when some of them get a bit of the drink in them. Sean and Victor and Abram, now, they’re none of them particular what they say – or...

‘Look what Ikey sent me! Isn’t it lovely? Eh, I feel a proper bad woman with this round my neck.’ She waved it at Solly. ‘It’s all right, isn’t it, Solly? Here you’ve been courting...

We scaled the dunes together, pulling ourselves up by the tufts of grass which had found a footing in this unpromising ground. On the top we stared out towards the distant sea, and the even...

But we went first, as Jinny wanted, to the fun-fair. It was her land, her happy home; for sixpence she could be raised into shouting screaming ecstasies of mirth. Whirling round in a thing called...

Dadda said: ‘Isaak, this is Solly. I have told you of him. Solly, my brother, Isaak. He is a Hun, Solly.’ He laughed. ‘An enemy of mankind.’ ‘Hoch der Kaiser,’ Isaak said. He was smiling...

Solly sat in the rocking-chair, watching the fire, listening to its gusty, intermittent breathing and to the more distant noises of the children outside. She handed him the cup, still without saying anything. He took...

Mamma thought at first that it was shyness, or a feeling of inferiority, on Solly’s part that was responsible for the failure of matters to get ahead. One afternoon, when he called in to return...

Solly never missed a week, except on the rare occasions when he was ill. He was always the first to arrive; sometimes so early that he would have tea with us. Anna, who did not...

I know before I start that I cannot hope to make a good job of Singing Jinny. Perhaps it would be best simply to say that she was a woman of outstanding vitality, and leave...