‘You have to understand how it was in my family. Mikey, you never knew your grandfather and grandmother. I’ve not talked about them much, have I?’ Mikey didn’t look at her. ‘You were ashamed of them because they ran a fish and chip shop.’ Patches of red burned on Vera’s cheeks. ‘I never said that. My father was a self-made man who worked hard all his life. He was proud of the reputation of our shop. He’d wanted a son, but there’d been several miscarriages before I was born, and my mother was in her forties when I arrived. She was never strong, always at the doctor’s. Back trouble. Stomach trouble. Finally, cancer. ‘My father was a solid Labour supporter because that was what his father had been. He didn’t hold with women going to college or, worse, to university. He expected me to work in the shop whenever I wasn’t at school or looking after Mum. As luck would have it, we were in the catchment area for a good local school, and there I learned that bright girls could go on to higher education if they wished.
