Sometimes they left him shaken and weeping – but generally he could find another lady friend, like his old pal Margie Geddes, to hug him until he stopped trembling.

He tries to mock the upper-class world that is second nature to Joan, even as he itemises its cars, and gardens, its verandah and summer house, in a dazed rapture.He was in the films division, she in the catering department.