The anniversary of Kali’s death last year fell on the dramatic day Kier Starmer resigned as our Prime Minister. I spent the day thinking of Kali and Kier, one a long life, the other too short.

I read again of his last days, but above all I recalled our beginnings and our journey. As it happens this time of great heat when work days are cancelled, I find myself returniing to the grand plan of succession and Scandanavian cleaning – clearing out what is not necessary to leave a relatively tidy estate for whoever finds the job of sorting it out. I went through old diaries and papers. I found a record of Kali’s beginnings, after our Romford Road to Timbuktoo journey.