We'll be home latish, perhaps not until 10 p.m.

Could you see the ride that goes down and round the point of the woods...? I could see down it till it went round the corner.... ...Then Mr Fawcett comes down the ride, rushing his chair along like it was a racing car... He carried on down the ride. Next thing Miss Harmsworth comes down the ride from the field...

Smile more often at strangers, my mother writes in the meticulous and Elizabethanly black penmanship for which she received excellent marks at Alexander Muir Elementary School in downtown Toronto, Ontario, circa 1934.

A little travelling clock ticked purringly at her elbow […]