Margaret records the family accounts of her birth at St Mary’s Hospital and the different details each relative remembered.

Margaret remembers moving from Copnor to a three-bedroom council house in Portchester before starting junior school.

Margaret starts at Castle Lane Junior School and relies on Denise while she learns the unfamiliar routines.

Margaret remembers Decimal Day through the conversion card on the kitchen table and her family’s different responses to the new money.

A reconstructed diary entry about Margaret’s final day at secondary school and the uncertain gap before her first job begins.

Margaret begins evening classes in typing and office practice, taking the first formal step towards improving her clerical skills.

Margaret meets Alan at a social evening in Fareham, where careful dancing leads to a telephone call and a first date.

Margaret and Alan marry at Fareham Register Office and begin married life in a flat still filled with boxes.

Claire is born in Portsmouth, and Margaret and Alan begin adjusting their Fareham flat and daily routines around their first child.

Margaret and Alan leave the Fareham flat for a three-bedroom house in Havant, taking on a mortgage and room to expand.

Michael is born in Portsmouth, and Margaret adjusts to caring for a second child alongside three-year-old Claire.

Margaret returns to paid employment as a part-time clerical assistant at Eastbrook Junior School.

The family takes its first overseas holiday, flying from Gatwick to Majorca for a week in a modest apartment.

Margaret becomes Eastbrook’s school secretary and takes responsibility for the records, money and correspondence that keep the office running.

Margaret and Alan move from their Havant house to a smaller bungalow in Emsworth as their children become more independent.

Margaret begins work as senior administrator at Millbrook and adjusts to networked computers, email and unfamiliar office systems.

A chance meeting in Fareham brings Margaret and Denise back into contact after eighteen years.

Claire marries Simon after organising the day with the same attention she gives to most family arrangements.

Margaret meets her first grandchild and discovers that Claire has her own clear instructions for handling a newborn.

Margaret’s first smartphone proves useful, irritating and capable of turning a reply into an accidental telephone call.