I knew something was up as soon as I spotted dad sitting in the car outside the school gates. At seven years old, I usually walked the mile and a half home.

‘It’s a surprise,’ he grinned.

Ever observant, I noticed different tyre tracks in the mud of our rough, bumpy country lane. Someone was visiting! Who could it be this time? Periodically, the family had relatives and friends from far flung places around the globe simply drop in for a few hours – or even a night or two – in transit to somewhere else. Might it be cousins from Vancouver Island, Saskatchewan or Chicago, aunts from Australia, friends from Sri Lanka or Greece? Perhaps my wandering uncle, currently living in Brazil, might be waiting for me with his fantastic tales, uproarious jokes and amazing gifts? It could well be someone I hadn’t met before.

No cosy chat by the living room fire with my mum while I munched on hot buttered toast and downed mugs of cocoa before getting on with my homework today. I knew the drill. Straight upstairs to wash and change out of my dishevelled school uniform. With shining eyes and eager smile, I would then be embraced – literally and metaphorically – into another world… an exotic world of excitement and adventure.

First there would be a full afternoon tea with all the best china, home made scones and at least two cakes. Later would come dinner with crystal glasses and candlelight, the men filling the room with clouds of blue cigar smoke as they sat over their brandy and port. How my mother managed to produce these meals whilst appearing to listen attentively to her guests I shall never know, but my tasks were to either listen attentively in her place while she ‘got on’ in the kitchen, or scuttle backwards and forwards between stove and table, ferrying all manner of platers and dishes of food, extra cutlery, clean cups.

I could quite happily sit and listen to and look at our visitors for hours. Colourful postcards, charming photos, garish wrapping paper around undreamed of gifts would litter the furniture and floor. I was given a Barbie doll before they were ever available in the U.K. Who… who might have arrived? In heady anticipation I leaped from our car. Enthusiastically I flung open the front door.

‘Hello!’ …