There is an old Goodsell family tradition, which probably descends from m mum’s side, of drinking tea in the afternoons. This usually occurs between three and four on Saturdays and Sundays, and is often accompanied by chocolate. Mum would call us down from playing in our rooms on Saturday afternoons, inaugurating a trice in our game of war of the rooms (no doubt mark and Luke remember this), ad we would have tea as the rain lashed against the window.

Well, this afternoon the skies opened. My lecture in Crewe was decidedly uninspiring – the promised Howard hawkes film not running due to technical problems and the football team, when last I heard at a damp, miserable pitch side, was loosing four nil. It belted it down. At one point, the thought of tea hit me: tea, that warm, sweet infusion that so typifies all that is good about England; tea, relic of that long dead empire; tea, the taste of sitting in the kitchen in Hampshire close, talking to mum. I drove from the pitch to the wes, and ordered a cuppa. I drank it while talking to mark, my neighbour, and Esther, and all he problems of a miserable day were lifted. There is nothing like chatting to friends over a good brew.