They didn’t. My grandparents’ Mini shrunk into the distance, making it minuscule.

I’d been sent into the back garden to play. I didn’t want to leave them. I had been staying with Bessie and Cecil, my dad’s parents, in Plymouth, while my mum was in hospital for six weeks with ‘bad skin’.

Grandad read me stories every night as I snuggled between him and Gran. During the day there were trips to the Hoe and the Barbican, for Mr Whippy ice cream and fish and chips. I skipped between them, holding their hands, delighted they were mine.

They let me balance on the coffee table, wearing a chiffon nightdress of Gran’s, singing Hey, Big Spender! I played shops in their suntrap garden, sitting at a camp table, serving grapes in newspaper cones. Gran let me have a bath with her Fenjal bubbles, though I moaned about getting out - it was cold in the basement kitchen where the bath was. It was warm in the fluffy towel though, and Gran made sure I looked smart in a new dress they’d treated me to in Dingles.

Their bedroom was on the top floor, and it would be twenty-three years until I slept in the second bedroom beside theirs. Grandad joked he’d wake up with my foot in his mouth, Gran would giggle as she dunked a Rich Tea biscuit into the steaming tea he’d made at 6am. I’d sit up to eat a biscuit then fall asleep again, rising a couple of hours later when Gran drew the curtains.

And there it was – the Royal Naval Hospital - I could see into the grounds. The black-caped figures with white hats fascinated me. They moved as if on wheels. A helicopter would sweep in like a bird when there’d been a sea rescue, an emergency.

I would later learn that my mum had had an emergency.

Nurses in black and white. My parents – one white, one ‘black’. Me, the wee girl my grandparents always wanted after two sons.

I sifted sand through my hands, keeping an eye on the house. I heard an engine. Tiptoeing to the side where the garage was meant to be I saw the car depart. How could they? Fear took over and tears dripped. I ran down the drive, my parents reaching for me. I stopped and waved, Look back! But they didn’t.