A family story about three-year-old Peter asking whether his new baby sister would be staying.

Margaret recalls the rented Copnor house, sharing a bedroom with Peter and the routines of early family life.

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

Margaret meets Denise, the confident girl from two doors down who becomes her first friend in Portchester.

Sunday visits to Nan Wells reveal the family’s fixed routines and George’s quieter relationship with his mother.

Margaret remembers Gran Collins teaching her the exact value of money before decimalisation.

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

A childhood caravan holiday at Hayling Island, remembered through packing, beach routines and four people sharing a confined space.

Margaret recalls a damp family week in Weymouth, with boarding-house routines, wet shoes and competing versions of the weather.

Margaret and Denise spend Saturday mornings considering records they can rarely afford, while Peter treats musical taste as a test.

Margaret receives her first weekly cash pay packet and discovers that earning money immediately gives it several destinations.

Margaret and Alan buy a used red Chevette after George inspects it and offers the nearest thing he gives to approval.

Two days after their wedding, Margaret and Alan take the Chevette and ferry to Shanklin for a four-night honeymoon.

Margaret and Alan settle into their first married home, a compact Fareham flat with second-hand furniture and a coin-operated laundry.

Margaret learns the difference between official school procedures and the working knowledge Pauline has built over seven years.

A low-cost family camping holiday in the New Forest begins with a borrowed frame tent and competing ideas about how to put it up.

A visit to see a litter of kittens ends with the family bringing home a tabby named Mabel.

The family’s first home computer takes over one end of the dining room and creates new uses, instructions and arguments about whose turn it is.

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

Margaret’s knee pain is diagnosed as mild osteoarthritis, leading to exercises, practical adjustments and selective acceptance of help.